


What's Past is Prologue

by Rose_of_Pollux



Series: The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo: Season 2 [2]
Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo (Cartoon)
Genre: Adventure, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26755450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_of_Pollux/pseuds/Rose_of_Pollux
Summary: [Original 13 Ghosts 'verse, hypothetical "Season 2"] Vincent and the gang find themselves in another dimension, sent there by someone determined to make Vincent face the memories of his past that he'd been trying to forget.  As they search for a way back, the gang learns more about what happened to their warlock mentor, and why he had spent the last three hundred years alone.
Series: The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo: Season 2 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866670
Comments: 20
Kudos: 5





	1. Illusions Right Into the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second installment in my hypothetical “season 2” of _The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo_ , basically a continuation of the first season and (mostly) ignoring the _Curse_ movie. This particular installment will be less focused on ghost/monster-hunting, and will be more of a character study, specifically of Vincent Van Ghoul, but also of the gang in relation to their connection with him.
> 
> This fic will be exploring a few darker themes, namely the medieval witch hunts and how Vincent’s memories of those times will affect the present, as well as how other incidents of his past can affect the present, as well.

It had been a lazy evening for the gang that day, having been a few weeks since their adventure recovering the three Gorgons’ Masks. It had been a turning point in their lives—despite the final escaped ghost from the Chest of Demons seemingly go into hiding and therefore absolving them of their responsibility until the moment when—if ever—it decided to show itself, they’d still committed themselves to helping the warlock Vincent Van Ghoul on monster-wrangling missions assigned by the goddess Pallas Athena.

Vincent had been both stunned and moved—even the self-professed “cowards,” Shaggy and Scooby, despite being presented with a way out of monster-hunting and being given the opportunity to return to their normal lives, had promised to stay and help. And even Daphne, who had spent a year worrying over what Fred and Velma would think of them for keeping all this from them, had also insisted on staying, in spite of how much she (and Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy) missed their old friends. As for Flim-Flam, well, the orphan boy had no desire to return to the village from whence he came, but he’d even been against seeking a new life in the States, as well. 

And so, they were all here, at Vincent’s castle on a Tibetan mountaintop. Vincent was in his study, casually reading an ancient spellbook and making his own annotations in the margins; every few minutes, he looked up from his book to observe Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and Flim-Flam sitting by the fireside, involved in some kind of mystery-solving video game taking place in a courtroom. Vincent was sure the legal system didn’t work that way, but he opted not to comment on it.

Daphne was the only one not in the study; working on another article, she was at her writing desk in her room in the castle turret. As much as she wanted to work on her article in the study with everyone else, she knew she would end up distracted and roped into conversations; it was impossible not to, given how much of a tight-knit family they had become, with Vincent having become a father figure to all of them—he looked out for all of them, listened to their worries and concerns, offered advice when asked, and, on rare occasions, had to break up the occasional squabble.

That, more than anything, was why they had all been so loyal to him—not because he just happened to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world.

Daphne brought herself back to the present, glanced at her progress on her computer, and began to pace, trying to find the exact way she wanted to word her article. But, as she paced, something outside the window caught her eye. She paused, going to the window for a closer look.

Her window overlooked the area of the peak in front of the castle—and the winding mountain trail that led down from the castle’s front doors. Several yards down the trail, someone had planted some sort of torch in the ground that was burning with a bright, blue flame; despite the wind and snow howling around it, the torch stayed lit—no doubt through some sort of magic.

Knowing that this was the kind of thing that required Vincent’s attention, Daphne moved to step away from the window to join the others in the study and tell them about it when something in the shadows beneath the torch caused her to freeze.

The shadows were amorphous, at first, but then, they began to take shape, and as Daphne watched, they began to resemble the familiar shapes of a tall, broad-shouldered young man and a short, bespectacled young woman. The two shadowy figures were looking up at her; seemingly unable to speak, they waved up at her to get her attention—and shackles were visible on their shadowy arms. And it was as they waved to her that Daphne recognized their silhouettes.

“… _Fred_ …!? _Velma_ …!?” she gasped, horrified.

What had happened to them!? Some evil force had gotten ahold of them and turned them into these shadow creatures! Was it the thirteenth ghost? Or was it some other entity? And, more importantly, was there any way to reverse this!?

The shadowy figures of Fred and Velma were now waving for Daphne to come down; their body language was clearly pleading for her to help them.

And it was as Daphne had turned to run for the door of her room that she paused, recalling something that Vincent had been discussing with all of them during a couple weeks ago, once they had all firmly reiterated their promise to stay and help him—

“You’ve accepted this life now, and while I am incredibly moved that you have chosen this just for my sake, it is my duty to warn you about some of the tactics the forces of evil use,” Vincent had said. “And the first thing you must learn is that the forces of evil love nothing more than to use your own mind against you—your fears, your insecurities, your regrets… anything that could be used to manipulate you to their ends is on the table. No one is immune, not even me. Question everything you see—whether it is something that would make a troubling amount of sense, or whether it’s something completely unknown. Question it. Your very lives could depend on that.”

Vincent’s words made sense, and yet—what if it was really Fred and Velma down there, needing help!?

But, again, Vincent’s warning echoed in her mind.

“ _Question it_.”

Daphne forced herself to look away from the window, and her gaze fell on her writing desk—and the phone resting on it.

Not caring about international rates, she quickly picked up the phone, her mind on autopilot as she dialed; she was still staring out the window at the shadowy figures when she finally heard a voice on the line—

“You’ve reached Cape Canaveral; this is Velma Dinkley speaking.”

“Velma!?” Daphne exclaimed.

“Daphne?” Velma asked, sounding surprised and concerned to see her so stressed. “Are you alright? What’s happened?”

“I’m… I’m fine…” Daphne said. “But what about you? Are you alright!? Where are you!?”

“…Daphne, you called me on my office phone,” Velma said, gently. “I’m at work—I just started my day.”

Daphne stared, embarrassed, at the clock on her computer. It was 8 PM in Tibet, which was twelve hours ahead of Florida. Naturally, Velma would be starting her work at 8 AM…

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Velma,” she said. “I’d better go, but, can you just tell me—when did you last hear from Fred?”

“Last evening, actually—I realize it’s pretty early to be talking about it, but my supervisor is in the finishing stages of his magnum opus, and if it’s a success, in a few months, we’ll be celebrating its launch, and… Well, I was hoping you, Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy could join us for that celebration when it happens—Fred already said he’d be there. I can’t really say much about it now, but once it happens, it’ll be a great article for you, too!”

“Oh…!” the surprise pre-invitation had taken Daphne by surprise long enough to make her momentarily forget about the alarming sight outside. “Well, I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that we’d love to be there!”

“That’s great! I’ll be sure to let you know the details when it gets closer to the time,” Velma grinned. “But, um… You should probably get some rest, Daphne—you sound stressed. Again.”

“…What do you mean, ‘again?’”

“It’s just something that Fred and I have noticed—in the last year, actually. Sometimes, when we talk to you, you seem so distracted and stressed, and we can’t help but worry.”

“Oh, you know—deadlines; it’s nothing to worry about. Really,” Daphne lied. “Speaking of which, I should probably get back to this article—and you should probably get back to work, too. Good luck on your supervisor’s project!”

“Thanks, Daphne! Good luck to you, too!”

Daphne put the phone down after they exchanged goodbyes, feeling relieved. Velma and Fred were safe, then!

…But that still didn’t explain what was going on outside her window, and why these shadow clones of Fred and Velma were trying to get her to come out and help them.

Daphne’s heart suddenly skipped a beat as she stared at the shadowy figures outside. After the Rankor incident, Vincent had cast so many protection spells around the castle—evil invaders simply couldn’t get in. …Which meant that this thing wanted her to get outside the safety of the castle.

…She had to tell Vincent about this right away!

But before she could step away from the window, the shadow clones of Fred and Velma melted back into the shadows, and two large, glowing eyes now burned brightly from within the pool of shadows. The eyes stared into Daphne’s as she inadvertently made eye contact with them while trying to figure out just what she had been looking at—and she found herself unable to look away.

“…Mr. Van Ghoul…?” she weakly called out, as she found her mind going blank. “There’s… something… out there…”

“ _Do not be alarmed, my dear_ ,” a female voice whispered in her mind. “ _I mean you no harm. But I need assistance, and perhaps you can be the one to help me_.”

“I need… I need to warn him…”

“ _You need to help me_ ,” the voice insisted.

“I need… to…”

“… _help me._ ”

“…I need to help you…” Daphne now said, her voice monotone.

“ _That’s right, my dear. Now, come outside and help me—but don’t let the warlock see you. He’d only try to stop you, and we can’t have that, can we?_ ”

“…No, we can’t…” Daphne replied, in the same tone.

“ _Then come out and help me! Quickly!_ ”

Almost robotically, Daphne exited the door of her room and left the turret of the castle, down the staircase and towards the hall, where the front doors were. She stopped at the doors again, noting the statue head of Pallas Athena above the doorway was glowing—a warning of a nefarious presence outside.

“But… Mr. Van Ghoul…”

Daphne turned back towards the staircase.

“I need to tell him…”

“ _Forget him! He doesn’t need you—but I do_!”

The vision of the glowing eyes filled Daphne’s mind; even as she struggled against them, the eyes bore deeper into her mind’s eyes, trying to stop her resistance.

*************************************

Vincent first sensed something amiss the moment Daphne had tried to call out when the shadowy eyes had first started to take over her mind. Absently, he placed a hand to his emerald brooch for a moment, and then suddenly got to his feet, heading for the large, ornate window of the study.

The others, surprised by his sudden movement, looking up from their game.

“Vince? What is it?” Flim-Flam asked.

“ _That_!” Vincent hissed, as he got a look at the shadows beneath the blue-flamed torch.

“Like wow, that’s some weird kind of tiki torch!” Shaggy commented, as he and the others now also crossed to the window.

“I’m more worried about those shadows underneath it,” Vincent replied.

“Rhit looks like rhadows of the fire,” Scooby commented.

“That’s just it, Scooby—sources of light aren’t supposed to cast their own shadows,” Vincent said. “Those shadows aren’t natural.”

“It must be some kind of beastie trying to…” Scrappy began, but then he trailed off as the shadows shifted position. “Look! It _is_ a beastie—it’s got eyes!”

Vincent took one look at the eyes and froze for a moment before suddenly cutting off their view by raising his cape in front of the window.

“Get back—away from the window!” he ordered, ushering them back. “Whatever you do, don’t look into those eyes!”

“Why, what are they?” Flim-Flam asked.

“I don’t know, but I could see they were attempting some kind of mesmeric control—if you looked into those eyes, you’d fall under a trance,” Vincent said. He sighed. “As you saw in New Orleans, not even _I_ am immune to that…”

“Lucky those eyes weren’t looking at us, then,” Scrappy said.

Vincent paused, daring a quick glance back out the window. Sure enough, the eyes weren’t looking at the study window; they were focused on something higher up…

“…Daphne!” he realized aloud.

He ushered the others away from the window once more and teleported to the corridor of the castle’s turret, knocking on Daphne’s door.

“Daphne!? Daphne, are you…?”

Her door was already opened, for it opened further as he knocked on it—and she wasn’t there.

He, too, had reached the conclusion that the shadowy entity had wanted to get Daphne to leave the safety of the castle, and after teleporting to the hall, saw that he had been correct—Daphne was there, standing on the threshold with the castle doors now open, her gazed fixed unblinkingly ahead at the shadows’ eyes beneath the blue-flamed torch. The moment she stepped clear of the front steps, she would be out of the field of the castle’s protection spells.

“ _Daphne_!”

His shout startled her long enough to allow him to run over and grab her arm to keep her from going over the front steps. But she didn’t even acknowledge him; she kept trying to move forward, over the steps.

“Daphne, listen to me—you must fight that influence!” Vincent insisted. He sighed, inwardly. “Perhaps it’s hypocritical of me to say that, seeing how Nekara had me in her trance…” He trailed off as Daphne now froze in her attempt to keep moving. “Naturally, I understand how impossible it may seem for you to succeed where a warlock could not, but if there’s anyone who could, it would be you.”

The others, who had risked another look out the study window and had seen Vincent trying to stop Daphne from crossing the threshold, had now scrambled downstairs, pausing at the threshold—waiting and watching. Vincent didn’t even bother to chide them for leaving the safety of the study—if anything, he hoped their presence would help Daphne fight against the shadows’ influence. During Vincent’s own time under Nekara’s spell, his greatest moments of clarity had been when the others had been close by, after all…

“C’mon, Daphne!” Shaggy pleaded.

“Rhease come back, Rhaphne…!” Scooby whimpered.

Daphne’s expression was still blank, but she did look in their direction.

“You’re stronger than that shadow meanie!” Scrappy added.

“Yeah! Show ‘em that they’re not the boss of you!” Flim-Flam encouraged.

She stood there, stunned, as she stared at them.

“You recognize them, don’t you, Daphne?” Vincent asked.

“…Yes…” she managed to say. “They… need me?”

“They most certainly do,” Vincent assured her.

The look in Daphne’s eyes seemed to be getting clearer, but, then, suddenly, a screech issued from the shadowy mass beneath the torch. Scooby jumped into Shaggy’s arms as he usually did, and even Flim-Flam and Scrappy retreated slightly.

Vincent, however, did not let go of Daphne’s arm, but Daphne now turned around sharply to aid the screaming shadowy form. She couldn’t walk, but then, she extended her free arm, trying to reach for the form…

“Daphne, no!” Vincent exclaimed, realizing that her hand was about to cross the protective barrier.

A shadowy tendril reached out from the mass and seized Daphne’s wrist as it crossed the barrier, pulling her towards it—or tried to, anyway. Vincent was still holding on to her other arm, and then, the shadows changed tactics.

The shadowy form now rose from the ground to form a shadowy mist, which swirled around Daphne’s exposed hand. The mist now seemed to vanish, but Vincent looked equally furious and worried as Daphne was suddenly ejected out of the protective barrier. An aura of shadows now surrounded her, and she smirked as she looked back at Vincent with glowing eyes—the same kind of eyes that had been in the shadowy mass.

And then, she spoke; it was Daphne’s voice, alright, but it wasn’t Daphne speaking at all—

“Too bad, Warlock,” her voiced taunted Vincent. “But your efforts just weren’t enough. And now, in the name of my king, you will pay for your act of insolence from so long ago!”


	2. Calling You

For Vincent, this moment was nothing short of a failure—failure to successfully protect one of the five mortals under his care. It had been a vow he had made to himself just over a year ago, after their struggle to stop Maldor had nearly cost them Scooby and Daphne’s lives. And now, this shadowy presence had moved from merely entrancing Daphne into fully possessing her, and all, it seemed, just to get back at him for something that had occurred in his past—a scenario he’d been dreading since the last year. He would, therefore, prioritize her freedom above all else—including his own well-being.

“If your king’s quarrel is with me, then there’s no reason to use Daphne any further,” he insisted. “Let her go.”

“Oh, I think not,” the entity said. “At the moment, she is a very useful insurance policy. Now… first things first—step out from behind all of your shields and protective spells, and face me.”

Without hesitation, Vincent crossed the threshold, prompting her to blink in surprise at how quickly he’d acquiesced.

“Well, now…” she mused. “This girl is a more effective insurance policy than I first thought…!”

“Daphne, you gotta break free!” Shaggy called.

“Yeah, you’re nobody’s puppet!” Scrappy added.

“Rhou can do it, Rhaphne!” Scooby barked.

“For Vince—for all of us!” Flim-Flam encouraged.

“I have no doubt that Daphne will prove to have a strong enough will to fight back. But, in the meantime, who are you!?” Vincent asked the entity. “Who sent you here? And what do you want from me!?”

“My name means nothing to you; we have never met, though I certainly know _you_ by reputation,” she replied. “You may address me as the Sorceress of Shadows. As for the one who sent me here, though you did meet him once, you never bothered to ask for his name. No, you attacked him without a second thought.”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed.

“If I _did_ attack him, I would have had a good reason for it,” he insisted.

“Nevertheless, his name would also mean nothing to you. But he remembered you, Vincent Van Ghoul. He never forgave—and he never forgot. In spite of the fact that my king now has achieved his goals—that he has slain all who could possibly oppose him and is in the process of defeating his last challenger—he still sees _you_ as one last, possible threat to his power. You ought to be flattered.”

“I’m not,” Vincent returned. “Let Daphne go, and tell your king that I have no desire to tangle with him again. He doesn’t have to fear anything from me.”

The Sorceress now made Daphne smirk.

“I’m afraid that isn’t good enough for either him or me,” she said. “And I see that you are going to be difficult about this. Very well. I know you wouldn’t dare attack me for fear of harming this girl, but as long as I’m controlling her, I have no such inhibitions about attacking _you_. How poetic it will be, then, to see you fall victim to the very same spells you have taught her!”

She raised an arm, aiming a hand at Vincent; Vincent stood serenely as the others, still watching from the threshold, all watched in apprehension.

Nothing happened, and a shocked and confused expression crossed the possessed Daphne’s face.

“…She has no mana!” the sorceress exclaimed. “She can’t cast any spells!” She looked over Vincent’s shoulder at Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and Flim-Flam, who were still standing behind the barrier. She concentrated for a moment, and looked stunned once again. “None of _them_ have any mana, either!”

“So? What of it!?” Flim-Flam frowned.

The Sorceress still looked baffled for a moment, but then, she suddenly started giggling—and then broke out into a full-on uproarious laughter.

“…Like, I hate it when bad guys do that—there’s never anything funny,” Shaggy gulped. “But it’s worse when she’s making Daphne laugh like that…”

“What, may I ask, is so amusing?” Vincent frowned.

“You mean to tell me…” she managed to choke out, between laughs. “That the most powerful sorcerer of _multiple_ realms has been reduced to merely looking after waifs…”. She glanced from Shaggy and Flim-Flam to Scooby and Scrappy. “…and strays!?”

“Rhays!?” Scooby repeated, affronted.

“Why, I oughta…!” Scrappy fumed. “We’re _pedigree_!”

“Call yourselves anything you like,” the sorceress replied. “The bottom line is that _none_ of you have any magical abilities, and you are therefore utterly useless to _any_ magical practitioner—and here you are, with a warlock whose reputation had made him feared across the realms! Oh, if they only knew how soft he _really_ is!” She glanced at Vincent’s brooch and tutted. “And he chose _emeralds_ for focusing his powers? Such a waste! You chose a stone that represents compassion rather than sheer power? Well, at least _that_ explains how you got yourself stuck with waifs and strays!”

“Are you quite finished?” Vincent interrupted. “As you pointed out, Daphne has no magical powers, so you might as well let her go! And, by all means, go report to your king as to how ‘soft’ I really am!”

“Mmm, no,” she replied, after pretending to think on it for a moment. “In spite of going soft, your powers are still a very serious threat. I must follow the orders of my king.” Still using Daphne as her puppet, the sorceress grabbed the torch with the blue flame. “And even if this girl has no mana, I can simply use my own!”

She held the torch out for a moment so that Vincent could see an amber-hued stone set in the torch.

“Desert agate,” she said. “It’s a variation of agate, the power stone, that forsakes all other effects of the original agate in favor of sheer power, and power alone. Observe…”

She planted the torch upside-down in the snow; rather than extinguishing, the stone’s glow caused the fire to spread across the ground in a circular pattern until it swirled into a spinning, whirlpool-like opening in the ground.

“You know what that is, don’t you?” she asked Vincent.

“A gateway to another world—on a different plane from this one,” Vincent replied. “I’ve seen them before.”

“That’s right—and of course, it’s one-way. You’re going on an interdimensional trip, Warlock,” she said. “And if you have any hope of returning, you’ll have to go back to where it all began to find another gate. Ah, but first…” She held out her hand. “I demand you hand over your emerald pendant. You could simply use that to teleport back here, and my king would certainly not appreciate it.”

“I will give you the pendant and willingly go through your gate on the condition that you release Daphne first,” Vincent insisted.

“You are in no position to make any demands,” the sorceress replied, as Shaggy, Flim-Flam, and the dogs protested. “This girl’s life is in my hands; if you wish for me to spare her, you will not question my orders.” She snapped Daphne’s fingers impatiently as she continued to hold her hand out. “The pendant, if you please!”

Vincent let out a quiet sigh and drew the pendant from his cape pocket, but just as he was holding it out for her to take, Daphne suddenly cringed, withdrawing her hand.

“No…!” she winced, placing her hands on her head.

“Daphne?” Vincent asked, concerned.

She opened her eyes now, and her eyes were flickering back and forth from her normal ones to the sorceress’s glowing ones.

“Mr. Van Ghoul, you can’t… can’t let her…” She cringed again, doubling over in pain. “You’ve got to stop her… stop me… Use Temporal Chains… any other spell that’ll stop us! I can hold her for another moment, but after that…!”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet, he was—it was both moving and concerning to see that Daphne thought herself to be expendable for his sake. Nevertheless, Vincent could never have considered using an offensive spell on any innocent mortal—and certainly not on one under his care.

“I believe you can fight her off, Daphne—but you must believe it, too!” he insisted.

Daphne’s eyes blazed with the sorceress’s control as she stood up once more, glaring back at Vincent.

“Your belief is in vain. This mortal is no match for me,” she hissed. She snatched the emerald pendant from Vincent’s hand. “Now, through the gate!”

But before Vincent could move, Daphne cringed again, and she suddenly threw the pendant as far as she could, where it disappeared into the nearest snowbank.

“You foolish girl!” the sorceress screeched.

“C’mon, Daphne!” Shaggy called. “Break free! You can do it!”

But the sorceress was already using Daphne to retrieve the pendant; Vincent had also gone to look for it. The sorceress, furious at his interference, used her own mana again to have Daphne fire a shadowy fireball from her hand right at him.

And Daphne once again seized control, horrified.

“NO!” she cried.

“ _Reflect_!”

With a wave of his hand, Vincent deflected the fireball with his Reflect Barrier spell, but even as he did so, the shadows around Daphne suddenly swirled again, and with a shriek, the shadowy entity of the sorceress was ejected from her.

“Rhapne!” Scooby called.

“She did it!” Scrappy exclaimed.

“Way to go, Daphne!” Flim-Flam exclaimed.

“I knew you could do it, Daphne,” Vincent said. “Quickly—get back inside the protective barrier!”

Daphne nodded and moved to run back towards the others, but as she ran, a magical fight quickly broke out between Vincent and the sorceress, who had now taken her true form—a woman dressed in a shadowy black robe; the shadow witch was sending more fireballs Vincent’s way, and Vincent countered then with handfuls of light magic.

“ _DarkFira_!”

“ _Diaga_!”

“ _DARKFIRA_!”

“ _DIAGA_!”

Daphne had almost made it back to the others, but the sorceress, realizing that she was no match for Vincent’s power, changed her tactics; she sent her next DarkFira spell over Vincent’s shoulder—and Vincent only realized it a moment too late.

“Daphne, look out!” he shouted.

Daphne dodged the direct hit thanks to Vincent’s warning, but the spell hit the protective barrier, sending a powerful shock wave that sent her flying—right in the direction of the open dimensional gate. With a cry, Daphne clutched at the outer edge of the open gate as she fell in, wincing as the blue flames that was keeping the gate open began to lick at her hands.

Even as Vincent teleported to the edge of the gate to try to reach her, the sorceress struck once more—

“ _DarkFira_!”

Vincent took the hit as he reached for Daphne, shielded somewhat by the magical properties of his cape, but Daphne, once again hit by the shockwave, had been forced to let go, falling into the open gate just before Vincent could take her hand.

“Daphne!”

“What will you do now, Warlock?” the sorceress taunted. “Will you leave her to fend for herself in some unknown place and time—?”

She was cut off as, without even a moment’s hesitation, Vincent leaped into the open gate.

“…Tsk. You’re not even fun to taunt,” the sorceress muttered.

Realizing that she couldn’t reach the others as long as they stood behind the barrier, she left them alone to look for the emerald pendant that Daphne had thrown in the snowbank.

“What do we do?” Flim-Flam asked, his heart sinking. “Vince and Daphne are…”

“They’ve gotta be okay,” Scrappy said. “They’ve just gotta be!”

Shaggy sighed as he looked at the open gate.

“Scoob, old buddy, old pal…” he said. “You know I’d like nothing more for us to stay here where it’s safe, right?”

“Ruh-huh.”

“…But we can’t leave Daphne and Mr. V high and dry.”

“Rhno, we can’t,” Scooby agreed.

Shaggy gulped.

“Then we gotta go help them. Flim-Flam, you and Scrappy stay here—”

“Not a chance!” Scrappy interrupted.

“We’re in this together!” Flim-Flam agreed.

“Okay, then let’s go—while that witch is still busy!” Shaggy said. After making sure that the sorceress’s attention wasn’t on them, he led the way over the threshold and out of the protective barrier—right for the open gate. “Like, _Geronimooooo_!”

The sorceress looked over at them, baffled, as she saw them jump into the open gate willingly.

“Sentimental fools, the lot of them,” she scoffed. But she was soon distracted as she finally found Vincent’s pendant in the snow. “Ah, and here it is!”

She retrieved the pendant, and then walked over to the gate, removing the upended torch, which caused the gate to close and vanish without the fire to feed it.

“That’s all settled. If they’re that desperate to suffer together, far be it from me to stop them,” she said. She then walked over to the threshold. “Now, I just need to find my way past these protection spells and access the treasure trove of that warlock’s magical artifacts that rest inside!”

“Yeah, good luck with that, Lady,” a new voice said.

The shadow sorceress looked behind her as Bogel and Weerd materialized beside her.

“We’ve been trying to get past Van Ghoul’s protective spells for months now!” Weerd continued.

“It simply cannot be done—the man is too powerful!” Bogel lamented. “And you won’t be able to get past them, either!”

“For now, no,” the witch admitted. “But you fail to understand that my king has readied a… reception committee of sorts for Van Ghoul. I did my research when my king instructed me to deliver Van Ghoul to him. I delved into his past and found a way to tap in to all of the memories he has undoubtedly been trying to bury all these long years. And I can tell you exactly what will happen to him.”

“Yeah?” Weerd asked, intrigued.

“Yes, and those mortals insisting on going with him will work to my advantage. Assuming the welcoming committee doesn’t eliminate him and those mortals from the start, he will be forced to delve further into his memories. But his pride won’t allow him to lament or appear weak to those mortals—his pride is far too great to allow them to see him with any weakness.”

Bogel wasn’t so sure of that—hadn’t Vincent swallowed his pride and asked the gang for help when, after being cursed by Rankor, he had realized that he couldn’t break the curse on his own? Vincent was no fool. And judging by the skeptical look on Weerd’s face, he was thinking along the same lines.

“As a result, Van Ghoul will distance himself from those mortals more and more as the memories of his past continue to haunt him—and eventually, he will prioritize self-preservation, as _that_ is the greatest motivational force in existence,” the sorceress continued, oblivious to the two ghosts’ reactions. “That will give the welcoming committee the chance to eliminate those mortals—I give them 24 hours before they start dropping like flies without Van Ghoul to protect them. And once _they’re_ gone, and Van Ghoul realizes it was on account of his carelessness, he will swiftly fall into a despair that will utterly destroy him—and once _he’s_ gone, his protection spells around this place will linger for a short while before fading completely, and I will be able to help myself to what lies within the castle.”

“…If you say so, Lady,” Weerd said. “You can have almost anything in there you want, but just remember that Bogel and I have dibs on the Chest of Demons.”

“But of course,” she replied, unconcerned. “And now, all we need to do is wait.”

Bogel and Weerd glanced at each other and shrugged. It didn’t make much sense, but far be it from them to say anything about it.

For now, they would relax and merely wonder what Vincent and those mortals would be getting themselves into.


	3. I've Just Been in this Place Before

Daphne was too afraid to open her eyes, at first, once everything around her had stopped spinning and swirling, and she had stopped falling. She had hit the ground, and had kept her eyes shut, fearing that she’d wake up in some utterly horrible land cloaked in eternal darkness—for where else would that shadow witch have sent her?

She was, therefore, surprised to feel grass and flower petals beneath her, and she could also smell the scent of flowers—cherry blossoms, to be precise. And she could hear the sound of something splashing in water. Slowly, she opened her eyes as she sat up, and gasped in wonder.

She seemed to be on the peak of a small mountain, from the top of which she could see vast fields of green meadows, thick forests, rolling hills and other mountain peaks, and, in and amongst the green, lakes and rivers that sparkled with crystal-clear waters. And she, herself, was sitting beneath a cherry tree in full bloom.

This place looked _beautiful_.

Something splashing in water beside her caught Daphne’s attention again, and she looked to her right—and gasped again, this time, having been startled by a large, ghostly-looking horse-like creature that glowed blue, standing in a small pool of water next to where Daphne had landed. She would have been terrified, except the creature looked at her in sympathy, glancing pointedly at her hands.

Daphne glanced at her hands now, wincing as she noticed the burns on them from trying to grab at the edges of the fire-activated gate.

When she looked back at the creature, however, she was startled to see it vanish before her eyes, leaving nothing in the small pool. Before she could even put a coherent thought together as to what she’d seen, she was then startled by Vincent suddenly appearing, hitting the ground nearby, also beside the water’s edge.

“Mr. Van Ghoul!” she exclaimed. Her heart then sunk—he must have gone through the gate of his own volition because she had fallen through.

Indeed, he sat up now, and without even stopping to get his bearings, he looked to her.

“Are you alright?”

She gave a shaky nod.

“Why…? Why did you…?” she began.

“Don’t act as though you wouldn’t have done the same for me,” Vincent said. He glanced at her hands—and at the burns on them; she quickly tried to hide her hands, but she knew he’d seen them.

“They’re fine,” she insisted. “I’m sure they’ll heal right up.”

“Daphne,” he said, gently. “Let me help you.”

She bit her lip, but extended her hands, palms up. Vincent then held his hands just above hers.

“ _Esuna_ ,” he called.

The burns on Daphne’s hands healed instantly, but before she could thank him, they were both distracted by Shaggy, Flim-Flam, and Scrappy also hitting the ground beside the water’s edge—just moments before Scooby landed right in the water.

“Guys!?” Daphne asked, as they also sat up—and as a grumpy Scooby drew himself out of the water.

“… _Please_ don’t tell me you left the safety of the castle and came here,” Vincent said, facepalming.

“No problem, Mr. V,” Shaggy said, with a sheepish smile. “We won’t tell you, then. Wait, Scoob, don’t—!”

He was cut off as Scooby now vigorously shook himself dry, getting water all over the rest of them.

“…Whoops,” Scooby said, realizing what he’d done. “Rhorry…”

“Nevermind,” Vincent sighed. “And perhaps it _is_ best if we stick together. There’s every chance in the world that shadow witch would’ve tried mesmerizing you into leaving the castle anyway.”

“Like she did to me,” Daphne said, going red. “Mr. Van Ghoul, I am _so_ sorry. I don’t even know what happened; one moment, I was trying to leave to warn you about the shadows outside, and the next thing I knew, she was making me do whatever she wanted—”

“I certainly don’t blame you, Daphne,” Vincent assured her. “As I said, if _I_ could fall victim to Nekara’s trance, what chance could the rest of you have? I’m just grateful that you were able to break free of her influence in the end. What we need to do now is figure out where we are, and what she meant by going ‘back to where it all began.’ …The thing is, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been here before…”

Shaggy, who had clambered onto a larger pile of rocks on the peak, now took a look around—and froze as he spotted something off in the distance.

“Uh… Mr. V? You know that story Mr. Voudini and Mr. Kreepoff told us about how you vaporized a hole in a mountaintop when you had a duel with another warlock that had tried to take you by surprise?”

“Yes, what about it?” Vincent asked.

“…Let’s just say that yes—you _have_ been here before,” Shaggy finished.

“…Oh, no…”

Vincent and the others now joined Shaggy at his vantage point, and found themselves staring off into the distance at a snow-capped mountain with a gigantic hole in its peak.

The warlock now let out a sigh, recalling the last time he’d seen this damaged peak from this distance—from the courtyard of a castle some distance away, on his knees, bowing, before an enraged king, indicating to him the result of his carelessness… It had been so long ago, and he had been so young, yet the memory still returned, unbidden, to his mind—

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_“Look at the wanton destruction you have wrought!” the king had snarled at him._

_“I do not deny the results of my actions, Your Grace,” Vincent had replied. “I seek only to explain them. And it is as I said—my companions and I were attacked, and to teach our assailant a lesson, I used the most powerful spell I knew…”_

_“Without stopping to think about the collateral damage you could cause with it!?” the king had fumed. “And furthermore, who gave you the authority to be judge, jury, and executioner? Your complaint should have been brought to me—and now, the man of the western desert you claimed to have attacked you is levying complaints against you that you were the one who attacked him. How am I to know whose word to accept?”_

_“It is as I told you, Your Grace, this man attacked us first, and unprovoked—my companions can attest to it, as well,” Vincent had answered._

_Behind him, Boris and Voudini, also bowing on their knees before the furious king, had nodded in agreement._

_“Your companions would undoubtedly corroborate your story! And regardless of who instigated the attack, this does not change the fact that you are a reckless excuse of a sorcerer who lost control of his power!” the king had retorted. “A mage who cannot control his power is a larger threat than a mage with ill intent!”_

_The crowd around them, witnessing this trial, had murmured and agreed angrily; Vincent had felt their eyes on him, staring at him with hatred and venom._

_“And let me assure you, Sorcerer,” the king had continued. “That if I had received confirmation that anyone had perished in your irresponsible display, you would not be alive to plead your case.”_

_“I… I understand, Your Grace.”_

_“And my people are already demanding recompense for the destruction of our highest peak, and the man you attacked also demands recompense for your attempt to slay him. Thankfully, the mountain still stands, and the man lives. I will spare you, Sorcerer—but you are henceforth banished from this realm, and should you ever set foot here again, I will not do anything to stop my people, including your intended victim, from having their revenge.”_

_Vincent had cringed at hearing the angry rage from the crowd around._

_“Again, Your Grace, I understand.”_

_“Good. Now, get out!”_

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“…Ya know, Vince, you could make a fortune carving out mountain tunnels,” Flim-Flam commented, to break the silence.

“I understand that levity is one of your ways of dealing with otherwise difficult situations, Flim-Flam, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t make light of this,” Vincent said. “This was _not_ one of my proudest moments…”

“Sorry…”

“But at least now I understand what’s going on,” Vincent continued. “The warlock I dueled has managed to take over this entire land, and now wants to make sure I don’t try anything against him. And he wants me to go ‘back to where it began’ to face what I’ve done—if what that shadow witch said was true about the second gate being there.”

“Rhall the way _there_?” Scooby asked, pointing at the damaged peak. 

“So it would seem…” Vincent sighed.

“Well, luckily I brought this along!” Flim-Flam grinned, pulling the crystal ball from his sweatshirt pocket. “I grabbed it from the study just before we headed out!”

“Hey, good thinking, Flim-Flam!” Scrappy exclaimed. “Mr. Van Ghoul can teleport us there, and we can be home in two shakes!”

“Why do I feel it won’t be that simple?” Vincent muttered. Nevertheless, he accepted the crystal from Flim-Flam and attempted to activate the transporter. His emerald brooch glowed, but nothing happened.

“Uh-oh…” Shaggy said, with a nervous gulp.

“Is the transporter on the fritz again?” Daphne asked.

“No—something is interfering with it!” Vincent fumed.

Suddenly, a gigantic, glowing eye appeared in the crystal ball, glaring at Vincent from within it.

“How perceptive, Warlock,” a voice hissed from within the crystal. “You may thank this girl for allowing me to interfere with your precious crystal!” The eye shifted to look directly at Daphne for a moment, prompting her to look mortified. “You handed over your emerald pendant for her sake; the desert agate I gave the Sorceress of Shadows was one of my own—as long as she holds my desert agate and your emerald, I can render your crystal ball useless! You _will_ play by my rules, Warlock.”

“If this is about what happened all those years ago, I never wanted to revisit this,” Vincent insisted. “Allow us to return to our world, and you will never hear from me again.”

“You are a danger as long as you remain alive, Warlock,” the eye returned. “Such power cannot be trusted—especially when you don’t have full control over it. Its existence—your existence—is a threat in and of itself.”

Vincent froze; something in those words had struck a deep nerve.

“You can’t hold something that happened _that_ long ago against him!” Scrappy frowned.

“Yeah!” Flim-Flam agreed. “He didn’t know any better—and _you_ were the one who attacked him first! It was self-defense!”

“You know nothing of that day,” the eye snarled at them. “I attacked because I sensed the threat he presented—to this realm, and countless others. I was sent by the people of this realm to neutralize this threat. And lo, he proved how dangerous he was in our duel—it was only by a sheer miracle that no one perished in his careless attack!” The eye now moved back to look at Vincent. “I have not forgotten, Warlock. And the people see the hole in the mountain peak and remember what transpired. And my most devoted followers are ready to face the danger and stop your threat—for good.”

“Rhoh no!” Scooby exclaimed.

“You can’t do that!” Shaggy added. “Mr. V isn’t a bad guy!”

“What… Whatever happened on that mountain was just a colossal misunderstanding,” Daphne agreed, stammering on account of still feeling guilty for starting all of this by letting herself get mesmerized.

“Are you children so certain of that?” the eye asked them. “You’ve only heard one side of the narrative, making himself out to be the victim. Perhaps you fail to realize that he, truly, is the villain of this story.”

“Even if that were true, and I’m sure it isn’t,” Daphne returned. “It happened so long ago, and he regrets it.”

“You speak as though this was an isolated incident,” the eye scoffed. “I have heard tales of what else he has done—the other trials in which he had been found guilty, a mere three hundred years ago.”

“That’s not…!” Daphne began, but she trailed off. Voudini had told her about how Vincent had stuck his neck out for his fellow warlocks during the witch trials, putting himself in danger to allow them to flee while he remained the target. But the others didn’t know, and Daphne didn’t think it appropriate to drop this knowledge in front of the others when Vincent hadn’t even wanted to talk about it—he hadn’t even told Voudini what exactly he had been through after his capture, but, somehow, this entity seemed to know. “That’s not what happened, I’m sure of it!”

“You know nothing,” the eye snarled at her, and its gaze fixed back upon Vincent, who was staring back at the eye in a mix of fury and sheer terror—a look that none of the others had ever seen him have before, much to their alarm. “And you offer nothing in your defense—because you undoubtedly recognize that you are a danger to so many. You’ve been on the run from your past for so long, but you didn’t truly think you would escape it forever, did you? Before you reach the peak, you will finally face your trial by fire that you were always destined to face.”

To everyone’s shock, Vincent now hurled the crystal aside, where it landed in the pool of water; he didn’t even look at it, instead placing a hand over his face.

“Vince!?” Flim-Flam exclaimed. After having been reminded again and again to handle the crystal with care, this had been quite a sight for him to see.

“Mr. V, are you okay?” Shaggy asked.

“Do not concern yourselves with him, Young Ones,” the eye said, still glaring through the submerged crystal. “I see the purity in your hearts, and so I give you the chance to free yourselves from the warlock’s influence and join my crusade. I reward the loyalty of my followers.”

Without a word, the five of them drew closer to Vincent, prompting the warlock to look at them with an unreadable expression.

“…Very well, then,” the eye snarled. “You may suffer with him.”

The eye disappeared and the crystal reverted to its normal glow, but Vincent still didn’t move.

“Mr. Van Ghoul?” Scooby asked, softly. “Rhou okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Vincent lied.

“Like, that’s a new definition of ‘fine,’” Shaggy murmured, quietly.

It hadn’t escaped them as to the look on Vincent’s face as the other sorcerer had taunted him, deliberately bringing up bad memories and then trying to suggest that he had deserved everything he’d been through.

And Daphne hadn’t missed how this entity had deliberately used the words ‘trial by fire,’ and how that had been what had caused Vincent to throw the crystal aside. Over the last few weeks, her curiosity had gotten the better of her since Voudini had told her of Vincent’s tribulations during the witch hunts, and she had begun to look up exactly what accused sorcerers had been through. Her findings had not been pretty—and fire had been a recurring device used for questioning and execution. Based on Vincent’s reaction to being reminded of those days, she’d quickly put together a horrible picture of what Vincent must have endured. And now, he was being forced to relive those terrifying memories, and all because of her getting sent here.

“This is all my fault,” she realized aloud, her voice quivering. “If I hadn’t let that shadow witch get me—”

“No, Daphne,” Vincent assured her. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. We’re here because of events that occurred in my past.”

“But that isn’t fair!” Scrappy protested. “You didn’t mean to have that happen!”

“Yeah!” Flim-Flam said, now retrieving the crystal ball from the water. “And you’re so careful with your magic now _because_ of what happened that day!”

“For some mistakes, there just isn’t any running from, even after such a passage of time,” Vincent sighed. He paused. “…And while I appreciate the five of you insisting on standing by me, I fear for what you’re inviting upon yourselves.”

“It’s like I told him, after everything you’ve done for us, we know you’re a good person,” Shaggy said. 

“Rheah!” Scooby agreed. “We’re with rhou!”

“They’re right,” Daphne said. “There’s no way we could’ve abandoned you.”

“Nevertheless,” Vincent said. “It’s a long way to the other mountain on foot, and our mysterious assailant will be sending people after us to pursue us the entire way. We’ll be reduced to fugitives. Look—it’s already begun.”

He pointed to the base of the mountain they were standing on; a small group of people were gathered, watching the trail that led down the mountain.

“Those meanies are waiting for us!” Scrappy fumed.

“Well, luckily, we’ve always been very good at running,” Shaggy replied.

“Then get ready to run,” Vincent returned. “Faster than you’ve ever run in your lives. And if it comes down to it, you’ll have to leave me behind. _Listen to me_!” His voice rose as the others protested. “I need your word that you’ll go on ahead or stay hidden if I tell you. Do we understand each other?”

Reluctantly, they nodded.

“Good,” he said, satisfied. “Now, let’s go. Run, and whatever you do, don’t look back.”

He led the way, the others keeping as close as they could. The group of people on the trail below saw them and began their pursuit.

The chase had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The place where the gang has ended up in is basically meant to be Hyrule (and the malevolent being threatening them is basically meant to be Ganon—who absolutely cannot be trusted and is attempting to gaslight Vincent, but that’ll become more obvious in later chapters); I don’t really consider this a crossover per se since the focus will be on Vincent and the gang, but I’ve been having _Breath of the Wild_ on the brain ever since they announced the _Age of Calamity_ prequel for next month, and, therefore, this happened.


	4. Deja Vu

Vincent hadn’t just relied on the gang’s experience at running for their lives; he had taken a proactive approach, as well, casting a spell that summoned a thick fog upon their pursuers—a fortunate thing that he had, for only moments later, a volley of arrows had shot at them from the mist—and had missed.

Casting his Reflect Barrier, Vincent covered their retreat until they had outdistanced their pursuers, but, even then, they kept running until they found their path towards the damaged mountain blocked by an impassable canyon, illuminated in the dusky glow of evening.

“Like, what now?” Shaggy asked, catching his breath as he leaned against a tree.

“If there was no interference from the crystal, I could teleport us across, but that isn’t an option available to us now,” Vincent muttered.

Scooby bounded up a nearby hill.

“Rha bridge!” he exclaimed, pointing.

“He’s right!” Daphne exclaimed. “There’s some sort of waystation over there, and bridge that goes all the way across the canyon!”

“And a waystation means a place where we could rest for a while and make sure we’ve lost those meanies!” Scrappy added.

“No…” Vincent replied. “I can’t risk getting involved with any of the people here in this realm. They could be minions of our ‘host,’ or they could just be holding a grudge against me.” He paused, seeing the looks on the others’ faces. “However, if the five of you wish to rest for a while and stock up on provisions, you can stop by there. I can hide until you’re ready.”

“Eh, we can keep going; right, guys?” Flim-Flam asked.

They all spoke at once, agreeing that they didn’t need to stop and rest; Scooby even started looking in the opposite direction and observed that the canyon ended near a winding trail that led right to the snowy mountain range where their destination lay, and they all proceeded to head in that direction.

Vincent stared at them for a moment before going with them. Without hesitation and without complaint, they had decided that they would rather abandon their quest for rest and comfort rather than abandon _him_. They knew that they would likely end up having to sleep on the ground, and yet, despite being young enough that complaining about it would be understandable, they didn’t make so much as a peep about it.

All five of them were wise beyond their years, Vincent realized. Flim-Flam, he knew, had learned the hard way, making his own way in the world after being orphaned at such a young age. The others surprised him; from what they had told him, they all came from families that were very well off—Daphne, in particular, had grown up in the lap of luxury, and yet, it was impossible to tell based on how she acted. They credited their adventures of solving mysteries as the reason for their practical outlooks on life—that they’d spent nights in caves, haunted houses, campuses, museums, even forests and marshes. They would accept a night out on a hillside without question.

And yet, they shouldn’t have _had_ to. They should have been back in their normal lives, chasing news stories and criminals in masks rather than being threatened by real monsters or, as in this case, a vengeful sorcerer who they had no quarrel with.

This whole thing had started all those years ago because their “host” had felt threatened by Vincent’s power. Perhaps it was true, then, what their host had said—his power made him a danger to others simply just by having it. Boris and Voudini had almost fallen victim to that duel’s finishing blow that day, and though they had protested Vincent’s later attempts to push them away, they had, eventually, given up, accepting that, from that point on, they would only see him on the odd occasion. Vincent hadn’t enjoyed traveling alone, but he had grown accustomed to it, at least until Mortifer had insisted upon traveling with him… and that had ended in tragedy.

Vincent had still been reeling from that loss when the witch hunts started, and that was the first time that his vast power had finally become a threat to _himself_ …

He was startled from his thoughts as he heard Daphne suddenly gasp.

“Oh my gosh, look!” she said, pointing ahead.

She was pointing to the abandoned ruins of what had once been a town. There were some buildings still standing, but all of them seemed to have been under some kind of barrage. Mechanical parts and husks of large mechanical objects were scattered around everywhere, too, near the places with the most damage.

“Rhat happened rhere?” Scooby asked, his eyes wide.

“A _lot_ , by the looks of it,” Flim-Flam said, his eyes wide.

“Some sort of attack,” Vincent said. “But there was nothing like this the last time I was here—the towns were smaller and simpler, but they were thriving and intact.”

“From the damage and the debris, I’d say that whatever happened here happened within the last five years,” Daphne said, using a nail file to scrape some of the charred portions of a wall. “The people living here grabbed their essentials and ran for it.”

“Hey, like, if there’s nobody here, maybe this is a place where we can rest for a while!” Shaggy suggested.

“Yeah, no one would suspect us of hiding out in a ghost town!” Scrappy agreed.

“…Rhost town!?” Scooby asked.

“Figure of speech, Scooby, remember?” Daphne assured him. She looked to Vincent. “What do you say, Mr. Van Ghoul?”

Vincent sighed and looked around.

“We did lose our pursuers and haven’t been followed for a while,” he conceded. “And we’ll all need to rest if we’re going to continue our trek to the mountains. And it’s true, this wouldn’t be a popular hiding place to begin with.”

“Then it’s settled—we’ll stay here for a little bit,” Daphne said.

“Emphasis on the ‘little.’ We can’t stay in one place too long,” Vincent reminded them.

“Yeah, the sooner we can get back to our world, the better,” Shaggy sighed. “Hey, look at this sign on this building! ‘The Rambunctious Rooster Inn.’ That sounds like a good spot to crash for the night!”

He moved to open the front door of the inn, but it fell off of its hinges and landed with a THUD on the floor. Straw from the half-destroyed thatched roof fell from the rafters upon impact like a weird kind of snow.

“…Not exactly what I meant by crash,” Shaggy said.

“Rhooks like the rooster flew the coop,” Scooby snarked.

“Very funny, Scoob,” Shaggy returned. “Anyone else have any opinions about this place?”

There was an awkward silence, which was only broken when Flim-Flam started whistling the chorus of “Hotel California.”

“Alright, alright,” Shaggy said, rolling his eyes. “But, you know what? This place is _still_ better than that motel we had to stay in Biloxi that time when Fred took the wrong road and got us lost.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Daphne shuddered. “Our room had flying roaches—Velma and I didn’t sleep a wink that night when we saw one fly by the window…”

“That’s one adventure I’m glad I wasn’t a part of,” Flim-Flam mused.

“Shaggy’s right, though,” Scrappy said. “At least here, we’ve got rooms, a place to wash up, and I think that’s a stove over there—a small kitchen!”

“Too bad we don’t have any food,” Daphne sighed. “Dinner at the castle seems like forever ago.”

“We’re okay! I brought along my emergency provisions!” Shaggy grinned, and he drew several containers of instant noodles from his pockets.

“Rhoh boy!” Scooby exclaimed.

“…You walk around carrying multiple servings of ramen everywhere you go?” Vincent asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Like, sure—doesn’t everyone?”

“No, but I think I’m going to start,” Flim-Flam admitted.

“Always a little something I carry around in case Scoob and I ever get hungry,” Shaggy explained. “I’ve got the miso soup and vegetable ones for me, and the chili-lime shrimp and seafood ones for Scoob—you can all take your pick! All we need to do is boil up some water on that stove, and we’ll be good to go.”

“I’ll go get the water—there was another pond just outside town,” Daphne recalled. “We’ll have to boil it pretty well, though.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Vincent warned.

“Rhi’ll go with Rhaphne,” Scooby offered.

“Thanks, Scooby,” Daphne grinned, and the two headed out.

“Okay, and now all we need is some firewood for the wood-burning stove,” Shaggy added.

“Well, we’ve got this perfectly useless wooden door on the floor right here,” Flim-Flam said. “And I remember seeing one of those big double-sided axes near one of the buildings nearby.”

“Yeah, I’ll go with you and help you find it!” Scrappy said.

The two also left, and Shaggy was now looking at the cookware he had to work with.

“Cast iron,” he commented. “Once Daphne comes back with the water, we’ll have to give these a good scrubbing, but it’ll work.”

“…I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” Vincent said. “But with that shadow witch holding my emerald pendant, if I tried to use my magic to conjure up a meal or water, they’d be able to know exactly where we are. I’d even considered a protection spell on this old inn, but with our… host’s ability to hijack my crystal, I wasn’t sure if we would truly be safe.”

“Hey, it’s alright, Mr. V—we get it,” Shaggy assured him. “You’re always looking out for us and helping us; now it’s our turn to return the favor.”

Vincent managed a wan smile. Despite knowing that he had powers that could bring those youngsters anything they could’ve wanted in the blink of an eye, they asked for very little. And they certainly intended to ensure that this compassion was a two-way street.

Suddenly, he froze.

“Shaggy, did Flim-Flam and Scrappy say they were going to get an axe!?”

“Yeah, they said…” Shaggy trailed off, the realization sinking in that their two youngest companions were attempting to procure a sharp object larger than they were. “ _Zoinks_!”

They both dashed out the door.

**********************************

Disaster was averted in time, and Daphne and Scooby returned soon with the water. They ate and retreated to their rooms, with Shaggy “volunteering” the first watch (in reality, he was still eating, and wanted to continue).

Vincent had stared derisively at the hole-laden ceiling as he drifted off to sleep, thinking of how those youngsters deserved better than this—and yet, again, they didn’t complain, not even once…

_“Have you considered that they do not complain because they fear your power?”_

_Vincent froze; all of a sudden, the old inn and the night sky were gone—all that was left now was a dark forest on a moonless night. Vincent tried to take a step forward, but found that he couldn’t move; glancing down, he saw that he was tied to a tree trunk—more than that, his hands were bound, preventing him from using his magic to free himself. At his feet were bundles of straw and wood._

_“What is this!?” he demanded. “How did I get here!? I was with the others! And where is this place!? This is just like…!” He trailed off._

_“Go on,” the voice encouraged. “Finish the sentence—for it was your sentence.”_

_Vincent paled, looking up as a figure emerged from the darkness—it was the enemy warlock who had brought them here, the same one he dueled on the mountaintop all those years ago. The man’s red hair was longer than Vincent remembered, but the headpiece he wore with the desert agate stone was the same. And his eye was the same one he had seen in the crystal ball._

_“They sentenced you to death three hundred years ago,” the man continued. “They feared your power—and rightly so.”_

_“How do you know all of this!?” Vincent demanded, as he desperately attempted to pull free from the ropes. “I never told anyone…!”_

_“Through my eyes and ears who were determined to help me find out more about the one rival warlock who bested me all those years ago,” the man said. “And, once again, with my loyal sorceress holding your emerald and my desert agate, it allows me to see into your mind and confirm what my men read in the records of those days.”_

_“Then I was right—this isn’t real,” Vincent returned._

_“But it was real,” their host returned, with a sneer. “And its memory still haunts you, doesn’t it? The mortals knew you were too dangerous to remain alive. And, deep down, you question whether they were actually right, and even after three hundred years, you still believe there is the possibility that they were justified in their actions.”_

_“They were scared,” Vincent said, looking away. “They let fear take control of themselves and drive them to murderous cruelty.”_

_“Fear of what, precisely?” the host smirked. He reached out and seized Vincent by the chin, forcing him to look back—and now, a crowd had surrounded them. “Fear of your power. We’re back to that.”_

_Vincent didn’t reply; his eyes were on the crowd—the same crowd from that horrible night three hundred years ago._

_“Then we are agreed,” the leader of the crowd said. “Though the warlock has not committed any evil, we cannot allow him the opportunity to ever do so. With power that great, none would be able to stand against him—we cannot allow the chance of him ever casting spells against humanity.”_

_“No…” Vincent once again struggled against the ropes, as though hoping he could alter the outcome of this memory that the other warlock had stuck him in. “Not again…!”_

_His enemy smirked, retreating with a backwards walk into the crowd while the leader of the crowd now drew closer with a lit torch in his hand._

_“…May God have mercy on your soul, Warlock,” he said, lighting the straw and wood aflame._

_Vincent cringed, once again struggling against the ropes, hoping against hope that a stray flame or ember would burn through them and set him free…_

_“Why do you recoil?” their enemy host taunted. “This was a fate befitting one so dangerous as you—and even then, you managed to escape it. But I will not allow you to escape it again—my followers will see to that.”_

_Vincent ignored him and ignored the memory playing out around him; he shut his eyes, trying to forget about the searing heat._

_“This isn’t real…” he reminded himself. “This was three hundred years ago. Now I’m in a different time and place, with different people…”_

_He heard the host growl in frustration as the sensation of the flames faded. Vincent opened his eyes again, and they were in a vast expanse of darkness now, illuminated only by 5 glowing, ethereal images of Shaggy, Daphne, Scooby, Scrappy, and Flim-Flam, standing beside him._

_“What makes you think that they are any different than those mortals from three hundred years ago!?” their host snarled. “I asked you earlier, how do you know that they do not fear your power, and that is why they don’t ask you for anything? How do you know they won’t abandon you to your fate?”_

_“This much, I do know,” Vincent returned. “And I couldn’t expect someone like you to understand why.”_

_“And yet, there is so much you haven’t told them,” their host smirked. “You fear they would turn on you, as well, if you told them?”_

_“No,” Vincent insisted. “If I haven’t told them, it is because the memories are too painful for me, not because I fear them turning on me. Daphne was able to break through your sorceress’s possession because she didn’t want to be used as a puppet against me. And they all unanimously rejected your offer to join you to save themselves. If those aren’t shows of loyalty, I don’t know what else would be.”_

_“They stand by you, not knowing the danger that you present to their lives!” the other warlock snarled back. “Fine, then—I shall teach them, courtesy of my followers. It will be the last lesson they learn—perhaps you can be haunted by their spirits as they question why they ever made the decision to trust you.”_

_Vincent’s eyes blazed with anger._

_“Stay away from my kids!” he hissed._

_It had been the first time he had ever referred to them as such—a sentiment that had been emotionally driven, but still sincere._

_The other warlock turned to leave, unimpressed—or had pretended to; the moment Vincent’s guard had lowered, his foe had whirled around and struck him with a fist swirling with dark magic._

_Winded and taken by surprise, Vincent dropped to his knees, looking up to see his enemy aiming another magic-cloaked fist at the glowing images of the others, who were backing away in fear._

_“NO!”_

**********************************

Vincent’s eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring back at the half-destroyed roof of the inn.

… _A dream? …No, not entirely. He was influencing my dream_.

He exhaled and sat up. Recalling his attempted execution by the witch hunters had been mentally draining; for three hundred years, he’d struggled to bury those memories.

But even worse than reliving that had been the threat to the others. He couldn’t let them suffer on his account.

He left his room now, walking through the foyer of the inn. Shaggy was pacing back and forth, watching nervously outside, but he paused in surprise as Vincent approached him.

“Hi, Mr. V,” he said. “Like, nothin’ to report, Sir!”

“Well, as they say, no news is good news,” Vincent returned. “That’s especially true in this case. But, nevermind that—you can sleep now; I’ll take over sentry duty.”

“Really?” Shaggy asked, checking his watch. “I’ve only been at it about twenty minutes—you sure that’s enough sleep for you?”

“Warlocks need far less sleep than mortals,” Vincent assured him. “Our mana keeps us well energized.”

“Ohhh, so _that’s_ why you sleep for an entire day when your mana runs out,” Shaggy realized. “Go figure. Well, if you’re sure, I’ll take you up on that.” He covered a yawn. “G’night, Mr. V!”

“Goodnight, Shaggy.”

The beatnik headed to his room, and Vincent took over pacing the foyer.

It was going to be a long night.


	5. Into the Moonlight

The night grew colder as it drew on, yet the five youngsters slept on. Vincent was debating on whether they should move out under cover of night or whether to let them rest. He had found it too good to be true that they hadn’t heard anything from their enemy’s followers since outdistancing them after their initial escape. At the same time, they needed all the rest they could get…

Vincent’s train of thought halted as an odd, red light filled the foyer, entering from outside. He stood in the open doorway, and the source became clear—the rising moon was glowing with a vibrant, red aura, and as Vincent looked on, the glow seemed to increase, and though the temperature remained cold, the intensity of the red light caused the area around to shimmer, as though it was a heat haze.

This… this was not normal. Vincent had traveled in this land with Boris and Voudini for quite a while before the incident on the peak, and never once had the moon done this.

He was still staring when, through the haze, he saw figures darting around and behind the buildings outside. And his blood temporarily froze in his veins.

They had to leave. _Now_.

Within seconds, Vincent was hammering on all of the room doors, calling to all of them that they had to leave.

“There’s no time!” he insisted, as a couple of them grumbled, asking for five more minutes; the others merely mumbled something unintelligible. And Vincent knew he would have to startle them awake, for their sakes. “ _WAKE UP_!”

His frantic shout did it; Daphne was the first to let out an exclamation as she saw the moon’s red light pour in through the holes in the roof, and the others also quickly awakened, scrambling out of their rooms.

“What is this!?” Daphne exclaimed.

“I don’t know, but we don’t have the time to find out,” Vincent said. “I saw people sneaking around outside; I’m pretty sure it’s more of our host’s entourage sent to deal with us.”

“Zoinks!” Shaggy yelped. “We gotta split!”

“Exactly,” Vincent agreed. “But before you go, grab a few of those blankets from the rooms.”

“The rhankets?” Scooby asked. “Why?”

“You’ll be needing them once we get into those mountains—trust me,” Vincent said. “Now, hurry!”

Daphne and Shaggy grabbed the blankets, and, rather than let them leave through the doorway, Vincent used a light magic spell to knock a hole in the back wall. Even as he ushered the others out the back wall, Vincent looked back, nearly freezing again as he saw the red-clad assassins sent by their enemy host forcing their way through the front, dashing swiftly and silently through the foyer and into the rooms—with the moon’s red glow dancing off of their weapons.

Vincent urged the others onward, realizing that their “host” had ordered his followers to target the others, just as he had threatened to. His quick thinking had saved them from the ambush, but they were still very much in danger.

Daphne’s scream up ahead got his attention; they had stopped, seeing the odd mechanical husks they had found earlier—four of them—suddenly active again, moving around on mechanical legs, firing lasers in all directions—anything that came into contact with those laser beams suddenly burst into flames.

One of the machines was now turned in their direction, aiming its next laser right at them—

“ _Reflect_!”

Vincent’s Reflect Barrier saved them, but that had also caught the attention of their assailants in the inn; they would be making their way back to where they were at any moment, and more of those mechanical laser tanks were activating…

“ _Temporal Chains_!”

And for a moment, he stopped them all—the assassins, the mechanical fiends, everything. He summoned as much of his power as he could to hold them in place, for they were already trying to break through the chains.

“Vince…?” Flim-Flam asked, a sinking feeling growing in his gut.

“Go…! All of you… go! _Run_!” Vincent ordered.

“But…!” Shaggy began.

“Rhat about you?” Scooby yelped in concern.

“Uncle Scooby’s right—you can’t take them all on your own!” Scrappy exclaimed.

“There has to be a way—” Daphne began, but Vincent cut her off.

“I said you have to run!” he said. “All of you gave me your word that you would listen to me if I told you to go on without me!” he reminded them. “I trusted you all to keep your promises…!”

The chains shook as both men and machine struggled to break free from them, and the strain on Vincent’s face from keeping them in place was clear.

“Please… _go_!” he said again. “Keep heading for the mountains—I’ll… I’ll try to catch up later.”

Nothing about that sentence boded well, and the others knew it—that he was only saying it to give them some amount of comfort, and that he was so outrageously outnumbered that it would be next to impossible for him to get away if he couldn’t teleport—which he couldn’t. He would have to somehow win against _all_ of them… but how could he, when there were so many of them!?

“What are you all waiting for!?” Vincent exclaimed, sweat pouring down his face from his efforts. “ _GO_!”

And they knew they had no choice. They had to run—if anything, perhaps if they weren’t there, Vincent would be able to use his stronger spells without having to worry about getting them caught in crossfire.

Scooby grabbed Scrappy and ran first; Shaggy left next, followed by Daphne, who was blinking back tears. Flim-Flam was the last one to stay before Daphne called out to him, and he, too, finally turned and ran, a haunted look on his face.

He continued to hold the temporal chains in place, not daring to give them a chance to slip by and follow the others. His head was dizzy from the effort, and it allowed their enemy access to his subconscious once more.

“ _You are a fool_ ,” he hissed. “ _You repeatedly choose compassion over power, and that will be your undoing. Fine. This was between us, anyway—no need waste my power on eliminating those mortals when I’m sure I can find some other use for them. Once you’re gone, they will be trapped in my realm without you to help them escape, but don’t worry. I’ll look after ‘your kids’ for you. Under my power, they will forget that you ever existed_.”

In his mind’s eye, Vincent saw the briefest image of their enemy warlock with his arms extended over his five companions, their eyes glazed over and their expressions listless and blank, devoid of all willpower.

And something in Vincent snapped.

“ _NEVER_!”

He released the temporal chains, not even flinching as the assassins and the machines all moved to attack him at once—

“ _Levitate_!”

He used each hand to levitate one of the mechanical attackers, and quickly swung his arms to make them crash into the other machines and minions surrounding him, knocking them aside, before hurling them into the air.

He then put up his reflect barrier as those assassins who hadn’t been knocked over now ran at him and more lasers were sent his way from the two remaining machines. A few moments later, the two mechanical monstrosities he had sent flying now came crashing back down on the other two mechanical creatures, causing all four of them to break apart into piles of gears and armor.

With them out of the way, Vincent now focused on the flesh-and-blood enemies around him.

“ _Diaga_! _Darkra_!”

He aimed the light and dark magic pulses at the assassins’ feet, not wanting to attack them directly, in the hopes they would retreat, but they sensed his reluctance and doubled their efforts, swarming him all at once—

“ _Sleep_!”

He cast the spell in a circle, and, in an instant, the assassins were all unconscious on the ground, snoring away.

Vincent took a moment to catch his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. That hadn’t been easy by any means, but he was nonetheless pleased with his efforts. By the time they’d wake up, he’d have rejoined the others.

He turned to leave in the direction the others had gone, but the moon’s red light suddenly increased in intensity; now the entire sky was blood-red.

A sudden noise behind him caused Vincent to turn around, and he froze as he saw the four sets of mechanical parts and gears glow anew under the red light and reform back into fully functional units again.

“No…!”

He was instantly dodging lasers again; the snoozing assassins didn’t wake, not even when the mechanical beings continued to fire lasers around them—Vincent had knocked them out cold for the remainder of the night, at least. But what also unnerved Vincent was that his enemy didn’t seem to care that his flesh-and-blood followers were in harm’s way of the lasers.

And now, pools of dark magic were bubbling up through the ground; desperate to avoid them and the lasers, Vincent now sought shelter back in the inn, but one of the lasers had struck him on the shoulder as he had run inside. The pain was searing, and it brought him to his knees as he clutched his shoulder.

“ _Are you ready to accept the futility of your efforts?_ ” his enemy’s voice taunted.

“Are you that desperate to stop me that you care nothing for the well-being of your followers?” Vincent returned.

“ _They are in danger because of your sleeping spell_,” his enemy snarled back. “ _This is your doing_.”

“I was defending myself!” Vincent returned.

“ _Still the same excuse, I see_ ,” the other voice said.

“If I had wanted to harm them, I would have used other spells!” Vincent countered. “ _You’re_ the one doing this!”

“ _They are loyal to me, and they understand that their lives are expendable in my service_ ,” the other warlock said. “ _If you are too foolish to use your mortal followers for such purposes, that’s your choice_.”

“They are not my ‘followers!’” Vincent hissed.

“ _Yes, that’s right, they’re ‘your kids,’ aren’t they?_ ” the other warlock sneered. “ _Even without my influence, they never would have stood by you_.”

“That’s a lie,” Vincent insisted, aiming several magic blasts at the machines outside with his good arm. “Maybe you’re right about my powers making me a danger to others, but even if you are right about that, there is nothing you can say that will ever convince me that those kids would ever betray me.”

“ _Take it from me, Warlock_ ,” the other said. “ _This concept of ‘loyalty?’ That is the lie. That is why I do not trust my own ‘followers,’ for I have been betrayed by followers in the past. That is why they are expendable now—and that includes the Sorceress of Shadows. And even if you were right about those mortals, what use could they possibly be to you? Not one drop of mana runs through their veins; they couldn’t help you even if they wanted to! And you know that to be true—for why else would you send them away? You did not wish for them to witness your final stand. I don’t understand why a warlock of your caliber would have surround himself with useless mortals in the first place. See where it’s got you now! You may as well surrender to your fate!_”

“And leave those kids at your mercy? Not likely. _Levitate_!”

Once again, Vincent aimed his good arm at one of the machines outside, sending it into the air; he was pleased to see that it fell back down on two of the other machines, and bouncing off of the third, damaging it, as well. Only the damaged one remained now, but before Vincent could aim his arm at it to finish it off, it had fired off a laser through the window of one of the inn rooms. The bed, the wooden walls, and the thatched roof of that room quickly burst into flame, and the rest of the inn and its flammable furnishings were quickly consumed in flames, as well.

Vincent, who had still been on his knees, moved to get up and leave, but, before he could, one of the dark magic pools from outside now bubbled up directly under where he was kneeling, trapping his legs in a solid darkness that was rapidly weakening him further.

Now, a tendril of darkness formed from the mass, quickly wrapping itself around him, binding his arms to his side—once again making him unable to cast any spells.

There was no reason to ask why the other warlock had done this—the flames all around him were answer enough. After making him recall the memory of his encounter with the witch hunters, his enemy was going to make his final fate the one he had narrowly escaped from three hundred years ago.

Sure enough, his enemy’s taunts brought up exactly that—

“ _I now pass sentence on you_ ,” the voice said, echoing in his mind. “ _With the danger you present to those who dwell in multiple realms, I choose to liberate them all from the threat of your existence! The flames can take you!_ ”

The last, damaged laser machine was shutting down from the other one bouncing off of it, but it had enough power for just one more laser, aiming from the hole in the back wall of the inn. Through the flames, it aimed its firing mechanism at Vincent.

Vincent barely noticed it, and it wasn’t because of the flames, either. No, he was thinking about his five young companions, and how his end would mean he could no longer protect them. He could only hope that they would stay together and keep running to avoid their enemy’s wrath.

That was it, then. The most powerful warlock in multiple realms, and all he could do was hope?

And as the intensity of the searing heat around him seemed to increase tenfold, he knew that his fate was sealed, barring some sort of miracle. And it seemed that his miracles had run out.

And with that, he held on to one more realization—

He had utterly failed. Failed _them_.


	6. The Fiction

Running from the enemy was normally an easy thing for Shaggy to do. But this time, it seemed impossible to do, knowing that they were leaving Vincent behind to a terrible fate—as much as they wanted to believe that, somehow, he could escape.

“Vince will make it out of there, right?” Flim-Flam was asking. “I mean, he is the most powerful warlock in the world. He’ll be okay, right? He’s _gotta_ be okay!”

Scrappy looked up at Scooby, who just looked back the way they had come from; they could see smoke rising from where the village was, and Daphne suddenly stopped running to stand and stare at it.

“…Why did we do this?” she asked, shaking her head in horror.

“He made us promise to run,” Shaggy reminded her with a sigh.

“…Well, I still feel like a heel,” Scrappy admitted. “You know I don’t like running away—we could’ve helped splat them!”

“Could we really, though?” Shaggy asked, forlornly. “If Mr. V hadn’t woken us up, those ninja creepers would’ve, like, gotten us in our sleep. And then those laser tank things, whatever they were, moved too fast for us to do anything…”

“Rhat least we would’ve been together…” Scooby sighed. “Even if we couldn’t have rhelped…”

The five of them gasped as the moon caused the entire sky to turn red.

“What’s happening!?” Daphne exclaimed.

“Vince… come on…!” Flim-Flam pleaded. “You gotta pull through—!”

“What are you doing here!?” a voice interrupted.

The five of them whirled around now to see a woman in traveling clothes, staring at them in concern.

“Uh…” Shaggy said, shaking slightly. “We were… we were…”

“A great evil has plagued this land, and the roads are not safe at night—and especially not for children,” the woman said, glancing at Flim-Flam. “And certainly not under the red moon. You two don’t look as though you could defend yourselves, either. And what kind of retrievers are these?”

“Hey, we’re Great Danes, not retrievers!” Scrappy snapped, prompting Scooby to pick him back up and give the woman an apologetic, nervous chuckle.

The woman arched an eyebrow.

“Nevertheless, you must get off of the road—and reach shelter. Come with me,” she instructed.

“No!” Daphne exclaimed, prompting the woman to glance at Daphne in surprise. “I’m sorry… It’s just that we promised someone that we’d go to the mountains! There’s a slim chance he might be trying to find us, and would be expecting us to go there—and he might need help, so we wouldn’t want to miss him by accident.”

“You’re ill-equipped for the mountains, too,” the woman said, without missing a beat. She glanced at their raggedy, threadbare blankets that they’d grabbed from the inn and shook her head. “Who in the name of the Goddesses would instruct you to go there? Travelers haven’t ventured into those peaks for thousands upon thousands upon _thousands_ of years!”

“Well, the point is we promised…” Shaggy began, but he trailed off as the woman’s words sunk in. “Zoinks! Thousands of years!?”

“Wait a minute!” Flim-Flam said. “Are you telling me there isn’t a bounty on, uh… on the guy responsible for vaporizing a hole in that mountain?”

The woman stared at him for a moment, and then glanced over her shoulder at the mountain in the distance.

“I doubt that very few even know the story,” she commented. “I, myself, only know of a story that has long since faded into myth. The great evil that now rules this land has persisted since times immemorial, and it is said that he once attacked a band of travelers, but underestimated one of them. The peak was damaged in this battle by one of these travelers whilst trying to defend himself, and the evil one, not yet having revealed his true colors, sought to present himself as the victim to the king. By the time the king realized his grave error, it was too late—the travelers had been banished, threatened by himself and others should they ever set foot here again.”

“Rhou don’t say…” Scooby replied, stunned.

“Again, it was in the extremely distant past,” the woman reminded them. “How do you even know about this incident?”

“Uh… Like, we heard it through the grapevine,” Shaggy said, with a shrug, and then gave Daphne a confused look as she looked somehow even more upset upon hearing the woman’s take on what had happened on the mountaintop.

“I won’t even begin to decipher what you mean,” the woman said. “All I know is that it isn’t safe for you to be out on the road on a night like this, but if you are insistent on waiting for this companion of yours, I suppose I cannot stop you. But I will say again—you had best seek shelter. And if you’re truly waiting for someone, then you must accept the possibility that, given the circumstances, he might not make it.”

She glanced once more at the red sky, shook her head again, and continued the way she had been going, keeping an eye out around her as she ran.

“…But Vince has _got_ to make it,” Flim-Flam said again, though with less conviction than before.

Daphne was staring back in the direction of the ruined village, the same upset look on her face.

“…I can’t _believe_ this!” she suddenly exclaimed.

“We don’t know for sure if something happened to him!” Shaggy said, though, deep down, he knew it wasn’t looking good.

“Something terrible _has_ happened, I just know it!” Daphne insisted. “Call it women’s intuition, call it whatever you want—something’s happened, and it’s far worse than it could’ve been because of _that_ mountain!”

“Rhi don’t get it,” Scooby said. “Mr. Van Ghoul’s in the clear!”

“That’s right—that lady practically cleared his name!” Shaggy agreed. “They realized it was an accident in the end!”

“But Vincent doesn’t know that!” Daphne fretted. “Remember all that stuff the other warlock said through the crystal!? He claimed that he was sent by the people here to take Vincent out—and then he went on about how Vincent was the villain, and that everyone still considered him guilty!”

“Yeah, it was all just a big, fat lie!” Scrappy huffed.

“But Vincent believed it!” Daphne exclaimed. “You saw how he reacted—how he threw the crystal! He’s _never_ done that before!”

“…You’re right,” Flim-Flam realized, his heart sinking. “Vince must’ve been carrying around that guilt all this time, and that other creep brought back all those bad memories.”

“And then some,” Daphne added, recalling the trial by fire comment that had been what had caused Vincent to actually throw the crystal. “That other warlock was probably counting on Vincent wanting to avoid being seen by people—so he had all of his minions waiting near that abandoned village, because he _knew_ Vincent wouldn’t go near the waystation with all those people there, and he probably knew that Vincent would stop to let _us_ rest! He planned everything out to a T!”

“And we fell for it,” Shaggy realized, horrified. “But how do you know that something’s happened to Mr. V?”

“I told you, I just know it—I just have this terrible feeling that he’s in danger right now,” Daphne said. She didn’t want to elaborate in front of Flim-Flam and Scrappy—that everything that other warlock had told Vincent had been to send him further and further into despair. It wasn’t just that Vincent wouldn’t be at the top of his game—their enemy, knowing that Vincent was the stronger warlock, had been putting everything he had into making sure that Vincent wouldn’t fight back, or at least not fight back to the best of his ability.

“Rhat do we do!?” Scooby wailed.

“We have to let Vincent know his name is cleared—that might give him the hope he needs,” Daphne said.

“Well… Vincent’s mana is connected to the crystal,” Flim-Flam said, retrieving it from his pocket. “Maybe if we try, we can try to send a telepathic message or something with it…”

But before they could even try, the eye of their enemy warlock now appeared in the crystal instead, glaring at all of them.

“ _Your message will never reach him_ ,” the other warlock’s voice taunted them. “ _I will make sure of that!_ ”

“Stop it!” Daphne ordered. “We know the truth—you just want revenge on Vincent! Everything you said back there was a lie!”

“ _And just what do you intend to do about it?_ ” the voice asked. “ _You are useless to him, all of you—and you know that is not a lie. What chance do you stand against me?_”

Daphne quietly fumed in helplessness before attempting to smack the crystal.

“Vincent!” she called. “Mr. Van Ghoul!”

“Can rhou hear us!?” Scooby barked.

“Vince, you gotta listen to us!” Flim-Flam added, hoping that they could simply be loud enough to be heard over the other warlock’s interference.

“Mr. V, you’re in the clear!” Shaggy said.

“Yeah, this big meanie was just making up a bunch of baloney!” Scrappy added. “All of it!”

There was no indication that their message had gone through—nothing had changed back where they had left the village.

And the other warlock began to laugh.

“ _You are too late!_ ” he taunted. “ _It is almost done! All that remains now is for me to decide what to do with all of you; if you had joined me when I had offered you the chance, I would have gladly welcomed you with open arms. Had you not behaved so rudely just now, I would even have spared you. I shall need time to think on what to do with you_.”

The eye disappeared from view, and, once again, the crystal reverted to its normal steady glow.

Daphne froze, making sure the fiend really was gone.

“Come on, let’s try to reach Vincent again,” she said. “Maybe that creeper won’t expect us to try after trying to put a scare into us again.”

She held the crystal ball out in front of the others, and they all started trying to call out to Vincent again—but then, suddenly, the calm, steady glow of the crystal ball just stopped, reverting it to a cold, ordinary glass orb.

“Rhat… rhat’s happened…!?” Scooby cried.

“It’s like the magic’s just… _gone_ ,” Shaggy said. “But that means…”

“No… _NO_!” Flim-Flam pleaded, grabbing the dead crystal from Daphne and trying, through tears, desperately to reactivate it again.

Daphne stared at this scene, and as Scooby tried in vain to comfort an increasingly-distraught Scrappy, before something in her broke. She suddenly hugged Shaggy, suppressing a sob as he hugged her back in despair.

“We never should’ve left him!” she lamented.

“I know,” Shaggy said, his voice breaking, as well. “But you know Mr. V—he would’ve sent us away if we hadn’t gone…”

“We didn’t… we didn’t even get to say goodbye…” Scrappy added, trying to dry his eyes with his tiny paws.

Flim-Flam had now sunk to his knees, placing the functionless crystal on the ground, no longer able to look at it.

Even Scooby had started sniffling as he glanced at the crystal—but then, he paused as the crystal began to flicker again, a weak glow fading in and out.

“Rhook!” he exclaimed. “The rhystal!”

The others now looked, as well. The glow was so weak and so erratic, but the fact that the glow was there at all was enough to rekindle some hope in their hearts, for it meant that Vincent was still trying to hang on.

“Oh…!” Daphne exclaimed, drying her eyes, as well. “Look at the pattern the crystal is glowing!”

“Pattern?” Shaggy asked.

“Yes, look! Three short glows, three longer glows, and three short glows again…” Daphne’s eyes widened. “It’s Morse code—an S.O.S.! Vincent’s alive, but he needs help—our help!”

“Then, he’s got it!” Flim-Flam insisted, getting back to his feet.

“Whoa! Like, wait a minute—!” Shaggy began.

“Vincent doesn’t _have_ a minute—he needs our help _now_!” Daphne chided.

“I _know_ that!” Shaggy shot back. “But what exactly are we going to do!? We need some sort of plan—”

“There’s no time!” Daphne returned, as she started back towards the village, with Flim-Flam right behind her. “We’ll wing it as we go! Are you coming, or not!?”

“Of course I’m coming!” Shaggy replied, taking off after them. “It’s for Mr.V! C’mon, Scoob!”

Scooby had already been carrying Scrappy back that way, too—they all ran back the way they had come, hoping against all hope that they’d be able to make it in time.

*****************************

Back in Tibet, the Sorceress of Shadows watched in sadistic glee as a crackling of weakening magic surrounded the protection spells around Vincent’s castle. The protective barrier was beginning to fade.

“…Bogel, do you see that…?” Weerd asked, his eyes wide.

“I see it, but I don’t believe it,” Bogel commented, also staring at the sight. “ _Nothing_ like this has ever happened to one of Van Ghoul’s protective barriers before!”

“Believe it,” the shadow witch smirked. “Van Ghoul may be the more powerful of the two warlocks, but my king is craftier.”

“…Does your king have any use for two ghost minions? Just asking for some friends,” Weerd asked.

“What friends?” Bogel asked, prompting Weerd to give him a shove.

The sorceress ignored them.

“Such trivial matters will soon become unimportant,” she said. “Look at this barrier. The signs are clear—Van Ghoul’s life is hanging by a thread! And once that thread snaps…” A smirk crossed her face. “My king will become the most powerful warlock in existence and assume command of all realms!”


	7. When All Hope is Lost

The five were shocked to see the village still very much aflame as they drew closer—but what also seemed clear was that there didn’t appear to be any more signs of fighting going on. Still, they had to be careful.

“Scrappy, Flim-Flam, we need the two of you to wait here for us,” Daphne said.

“What!?” Flim-Flam exclaimed. “That’s not fair!”

“We came here to help Mr. Van Ghoul, and that just what we’re going to do!” Scrappy said.

“Yes, you are—and you’re going to do it by taking these blankets we grabbed from the inn and getting some sort of makeshift mattress for Mr. Van Ghoul in case he needs his rest,” Daphne returned.

“And like, we gotta draw the line somewhere, and it’s going to be that we can’t let you two run around in that village when it’s on fire,” Shaggy added. “Scoob, you need to stay here with them.”

“Huh!?” the Great Dane exclaimed. “But I can rhelp—!”

“By making sure everyone is where they need to be and ready to do what they have to, Buddy,” Shaggy finished for him.

Scooby’s ears drooped, but he nodded.

“Rhokay…”

“But how do we know that you two aren’t going to end up in some kind of trouble?” Flim-Flam asked.

“Give us an hour before you start looking for us,” Daphne said. “You hear that, Scooby? One hour.”

Scooby nodded again.

Satisfied, Daphne nodded at Shaggy, and the two of them headed for the village.

“I have a confession,” Daphne admitted. “I mean, I’m glad Scrappy and Flim-Flam won’t be running around all that fire, but that wasn’t the main reason why I wanted them to stay behind.”

“It’s the same reason I wanted Scoob to stay behind,” Shaggy said, understanding. “If Mr. V really has had something terrible happen to him, we don’t want Scrappy and Flim-Flam to see him like that. …Scoob, too—you know how sensitive he is.”

Daphne nodded.

“I really, _really_ hope I’m wrong,” she said. “I’ve never wanted to be more wrong about anything, but…”

She trailed off as they reentered the village. It was all so quiet, aside from the crackling of the flames, and it was clear that Daphne’s sense of foreboding wasn’t at all unwarranted.

“Mr. Van Ghoul!?” Daphne called.

“Can you hear us, Mr. V!?” Shaggy added. “…I can barely hear _myself_ over all this fire! Let’s go back to the back of the inn; that’s where we saw him last!”

“Okay, but I really don’t think he’d stick around…” Daphne trailed off, gasping as she saw the unconscious assassins snoring away on the ground, and the four mechanical laser tanks, motionless aside from some weak flickering.

“They just decided to sleep on the ground?” Shaggy asked.

“Not likely,” Daphne said. “Vincent probably put a sleeping spell on them because he didn’t want to hurt them.”

“Then… he won!” Shaggy realized. “But, like, why wouldn’t he have left and caught up with us? We would’ve seen him on the way back here—”

“Watch out!” Daphne exclaimed, grabbing Shaggy’s arm.

“Zoinks…!” Shaggy yelped, realizing he had nearly walked right into one of the pools of dark magic on the ground. “What is that stuff!?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out…” Daphne said. “Let’s just watch our step—this stuff is everywhere now, it’s even trailing back inside the inn…” She turned to see the trail of dark magic via the hole in the inn’s back wall—and froze as she saw a figure through the flames and the heat haze. “ _VINCENT_!”

She would’ve ran right through the flames to reach him if Shaggy hadn’t grabbed _her_ arm now.

“Shaggy, we have to help him—!”

“We can’t go through that way; we gotta go around the entrance!” he exclaimed.

Daphne changed course immediately, and Shaggy was right behind her; Daphne let out another cry as they saw Vincent, collapsed on the floor of the inn with the tendril of dark magic wrapped around him—and a severe burn on his left shoulder from where one of the lasers had struck him, burning a hole right through his tuxedo. A second laser had struck him on his right calf, also having burned right through his pants leg and leaving a burn, there, as well—he had narrowly avoided taking a direct hit from that last laser by allowing himself to fall, but had lost consciousness soon after that. In addition to the flames all around him, embers and flaming chunks falling from the ceiling were landing dangerously close to him.

“One side!” Shaggy ordered.

Daphne gave him room as Shaggy now grabbed the double-sided axe that he and Vincent had managed to grab earlier, before Scrappy and Flim-Flam had been able to; thinking quickly, Shaggy hacked at the dark magic pool a couple feet from where Vincent was ensnared in it. The beatnik let out a frightened cry as an eye appeared in the darkness—a magical, glowing eye that resembled the one they had seen in the hijacked crystal ball. But Shaggy had already been in mid-swing and couldn’t stop—he brought the axe down on the eye.

There was a blood-curdling roar of pain, and the magical eye vanished, followed by the entire pool of darkness ensnaring Vincent also vanishing, as though it had been alive.

Shaggy stared for a moment, trying very hard not to think about what he had just seen and the implications of what he’d just done before snapping out of it, tossing the axe aside and kneeling beside Daphne to help as she tried, in vain, to revive Vincent.

“Mr. Van Ghoul, you’ve got to wake up! _Please_ …!”

“You gotta hang in there, Mr. V!” Shaggy pleaded. He then yelped as one of the support beams of the ceiling let out an audible crack. “Daphne, we gotta get him out of here—the roof is going to crash down right on top of us!”

“Okay, but be careful with his hurt shoulder—it looks really bad…” she fretted. Daphne had never seen a burn that deep before. “And be careful of his leg, too.”

It took some maneuvering, but they were finally able to move Vincent and get him out of the inn and out into the fresh air, with only moments to spare—the roof of the inn fell in just as they were gently laying Vincent back down.

“Ohh, that was too close…” Shaggy sighed. “Come on; we’ve gotta get him back to the others and see if there’s anything in the first aid kit—”

“Our little first aid kit isn’t going to be enough for _this_!” she exclaimed, pointing to the deep burn on Vincent’s shoulder. Vincent was still unconscious, but the look on his face was one of unmistakable pain, and his breathing was extremely shallow. “He needs help now—right this moment!”

“But how are we supposed to—?”

“I got it!” Daphne exclaimed. “When I burned my hands on the shadow witch’s fire gate, Mr. Van Ghoul healed them with a spell—he also used that spell once on Scooby when he got burned by Chimera fire when we were getting the Gorgons’ masks! Maybe that spell can work on him, too!”

“Yeah, I remember,” Shaggy recalled. “But there’s just one problem—we can’t use that spell. We’re ordinary mortals! We don’t have mana, remember?”

“I know that, but Mr. Van Ghoul does,” Daphne said, crossing Vincent’s right arm across his chest so that the fingertips of his right hand just barely touched his wounded left shoulder. “Maybe we can use his mana to cast the spell!”

Shaggy wasn’t sure about that, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to try. He watched, nervously, as Daphne now placed her hand on top of Vincent’s.

“What was the spell…?” she murmured, trying to recall what had happened by the pond. It had happened so quickly, but she simply had to remember—for Vincent’s sake…! “Oh, I remember! _Esuna_!”

Nothing happened, and Daphne’s heart sank.

“ _Esuna_!” she tried again. “ _ESUNA_!”

“Daphne…” Shaggy said, gently. “I don’t think this is how it works—”

“Then _do something_!” she exclaimed.

A helpless look crossed Shaggy’s face, he had no other ideas, but he placed his hand on top of hers, now.

“On the count of three?” he offered. “One… two… three—”

“ _Esuna_!” they both chanted.

Still nothing.

“…I don’t know what else to do…” Daphne said, despairing again. “He’s fading fast—right in front of our eyes—and we can’t do anything about it!?”

Shaggy drew an arm around her in a vain attempt to give her some support, but found himself with a lump in his throat, as well.

“Hey, Mr. V…?” he said, his voice cracking, as well. “You already do so much for us, so we try not to ask you for anything more, but… Well, if you could just… stick around, that’s all we’d really need—”

He was cut off by familiar shouts nearby—

“Vince!? Shaggy!? Daphne!? … _Anyone_ …!?”

“Mr. Van Ghoul? Rhaggy? Rhaphne?”

“Where are you guys!?”

“Oh, no…” Shaggy whispered. “I told them an _hour_ …!” Deep down, however, he had known they probably wouldn’t have been able to wait—if anything, it was a miracle they’d waited this long.

“Mr. Van Ghoul, please wake up!” Daphne pleaded. “You can’t let Flim-Flam and Scrappy see you like this—they’ll never get over it! Scooby, too! I’ll never ask for anything ever again, just please, _wake up_!”

“…Daphne, look—his brooch!” Shaggy exclaimed, pointing as the emerald set in Vincent’s brooch was glowing a faint green. “Let’s try the spell one more time!”

“Okay,” she said. “One… two… three—”

“ _Esuna_!”

This time, Vincent’s right hand started to glow, and, before their eyes, the deep burn on his shoulder shrank until it vanished, healing completely. Almost instantly, his breathing eased, and the look of pain on his face faded. He was still out cold, but at least now he looked asleep and not on the brink of death.

Daphne slumped against Shaggy, crying in relief as Scooby, Flim-Flam, and Scrappy finally found them—Scooby having sniffed out their scent to track them down.

“ _Vince_!” Flim-Flam cried. “Is he…?”

“He should be okay now,” Shaggy sighed, drawing an arm around Daphne again.

“Thank goodness,” Scrappy said. “That meanie showed up on the crystal ball again, screaming something about ordering you to stop whatever it was you were doing—we just had to find you.”

“Rheah, we thought rhou were in trouble,” Scooby said, knowing that they hadn’t waited an hour. His ears drooped. “Rhorry…”

“It’s okay, Scoob,” Shaggy assured him.

“At least everyone is safe now,” Daphne said. She paused. “What did you say about that creeper ordering us to stop?”

“Something about ‘stop your futile efforts,’ but then he started yelling as though he was in pain—” Flim-Flam began.

The crystal suddenly fell from Flim-Flam’s pocket, causing him to yelp in alarm as the crystal blazed with the dark magic that had been all over the ground of the village. The eye glared at them from within the crystal, but it was only half-open now, and a scar now ran across it from the top-down, and it glared furiously at Shaggy.

“ _YOU_!” the enemy warlock fumed. “ _You did this to me—a pathetic, mortal boy dared to strike me!?_”

“I… I…” Shaggy stammered. In hindsight, he should’ve suspected that their “host” wouldn’t have taken kindly to attacking his dark magic directly with that axe, but his only thought at that moment had been freeing Vincent.

“Hey, you can’t threaten Shaggy!” Scrappy fumed, as even Scooby growled in defense fof his best friend.

“ _I will do more than threaten_ ,” their enemy vowed. “ _The boy will pay dearly for his insolence, make no mistake about that!_ ”

“You will leave Shaggy _and_ the others alone,” Vincent declared.

The others whirled around, stunned to see Vincent not only conscious again, but sitting upright; the burn on his leg was still bothering him, but he clearly had other things on his mind right at that moment.

The enemy warlock let out another snarl of frustration as he glared at Vincent now.

“ _You!? Why won’t you just die!?_ ”

“If you can’t figure out that incredibly obvious answer, I see no reason for me to explain it to you,” Vincent returned. “But let me reiterate again what you seem to ignore repeatedly—these five are under my protection. I will not allow you to harm them. _Diaga_!”

He reached out and placed a hand on the crystal, summoning light magic from within it; the sudden flash of light caused the other warlock to retreat with another pained roar, and the crystal ball reverted once more to its steady, calm glow—reflecting that Vincent was in good health once again.

He turned to face the others now, deciding to be as casual as he could for someone who had narrowly escaped such a terrible fate. But before he could say a word, he found himself enveloped in a flurry of hugs—which he hesitated for a moment before returning.

They _had_ saved him, after all. Reassurance was the least he could give them in return.


	8. The Past Left in the Distance

The Sorceress of Shadow’s smirk had faded from her face as the barrier around Vincent’s castle stopped weakening—and then, to her utter frustration, it began to glow again at full strength.

“What happened!?” she fumed. “He was dying—the barrier was almost completely faded! Who is responsible for this!?”

“I’ll give you one guess,” Bogel said, realizing that he should’ve seen this coming.

“Those meddling kids,” Weerd finished for him. “And the dogs, too.”

“What!?” the witch fumed.

“Van Ghoul ain’t too proud after all,” Bogel informed her. “And those kids aren’t about to hesitate in helping him if he needs it.”

“Impossible!” she scoffed. “What can a bunch of useless mortals do!?”

“Apparently enough,” Weerd said. “Lady, get in line. We’ve been dealing with these kinds of shenanigans for over a year now. We don’t get it, either.”

The sorceress cursed under her breath, glaring at the barrier.

“This isn’t over,” she assured them. “My king won’t allow for this. You’ll see. Next time, he’ll just take them all out.”

**********************************

As much as Vincent hadn’t wanted to call the others back to the village, it had been a calculated risk. The assassins were asleep, and he had shut down the mechanical menaces. It hadn’t even been to save himself, this time—after over two thousand years, he’d learned not to fear death. But it was the knowledge of knowing that, if he had died, the others would have been completely unprotected from their enemy, that had made Vincent desperate enough to call them back via the SOS from the crystal.

He’d known if anyone could have saved him, it would have been them, despite the fact that they were mortals. What they lacked in mana, they made up for in guile and sheer determination. They had saved him in the past, more than once, after all. And they’d done it again.

What was different this time, however, was how shaken they were—Shaggy and Daphne especially. Even as they sat there as the village continued to burn around them, no one moved to be the first to break the group hug, and as much as Vincent wanted to continue to reassure them, he also knew that they had to keep going.

“We’re not safe here,” he reminded them. “More reinforcements could be on their way as we speak—we need to continue our way to the mountains and avoid being spotted by anyone.”

“Wait a minute!” Daphne exclaimed. “We don’t _have_ to avoid everyone! We wanted to tell you—your name was cleared!”

“…What…?” Vincent asked.

“That other warlock was fibbing,” Shaggy said. “The king eventually realized he was setting you up, but, like, he’d already banished you, so he couldn’t do anything about it.”

“…How do you know all this?” Vincent asked, arching an eyebrow. It sounded far too good to believe.

“We were on our way to the mountains—like we promised—when we met this lady who said that no one has been up in those mountains for thousands and thousands of years,” Flim-Flam said. “She told us everything she knew.”

“Rheah, most people don’t even know rhat rhappened!” Scooby added.

“You and that big meanie are the only ones here who really know what happened up there,” Scrappy said. “So, he said a whole bunch of lies to make you think you were still wanted!”

“He knew you would want to avoid people and follow the trail that didn’t go past that waystation back there,” Daphne explained again. “And he also knew that this village was along this trail…”

“…And he knew that I wouldn’t be heartless and deny you some rest,” Vincent finished, his eyes narrowing as he recalled how the ninja assassins had gone directly to the rooms of the inn, looking for the youngsters. “I led the five of you right into a trap.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Daphne exclaimed, prompting him to look at her with an arched eyebrow. “It’s like you’re always telling us—‘the forces of evil love nothing more than to use your own mind against you.’ …You even said that you weren’t immune to that.”

“I have to say, I never thought I’d be manipulated _this_ thoroughly,” Vincent admitted, looking away. “But we can discuss this later—we need to leave this forsaken village! But first…” He quickly passed a hand over his injured leg. “ _Esuna_.”

After the burn on his leg had healed, Vincent snapped his fingers, and the damage to his tuxedo was instantly repaired. He then aimed a hand at the sky.

“ _Aquara_.”

Rain clouds now covered the sky, blocking out the light of the red moon.

“It’ll start raining soon—that will put out all of these fires,” he said. He now picked up the crystal again. “And as for us, I’m going to try to teleport us out of here and directly onto the mountaintop.”

“But won’t that creep try to interfere again?” Shaggy asked.

“I’m hoping that he won’t be expecting it after all of this, but he might try to stop us before we reach our destination, and one of two things will happen,” Vincent said. “Either we’ll successfully reach the mountaintop and can use the gate to go home, or he will interfere and we’ll fall short—but if that happens, even _he_ won’t know where we are. You all need to stick close to me in case we _do_ fall short—if we lost track of each other in mid-warp, we would get separated, which, in that climate, would be a disaster.” He waited until he felt the others grab on to his arms, and then activated the crystal.

They felt the familiar sensation that they always felt whenever they teleported, but then they felt it interrupted, as Vincent had warned them, and heard another furious roar from the enemy warlock.

The next thing they knew, they had all landed together on a snowdrift, not quite in the right place, though they were in the shadow of the mountain—so close, and yet so far. But they were also in the middle of a blizzard, and the winds were whipping the snow all around them—Shaggy, in just his red t-shirt and jeans, was suffering the most, and quickly hugged Scooby close.

“F-Flim-Flam!” he stammered. “Those blankets—please t-t-tell me you b-b-brought ‘em with y-you!”

“I got ‘em!” the boy said. Having grown up in Tibet, he had some resistance to the cold, but this was still uncomfortable. He quickly handed blankets to everyone, and huddled close with Scrappy.

“Well, it could have gone better,” Vincent said, over the blizzard. “But all we need to do now is climb the mountain once this blizzard subsides.”

“Groovy,” Shaggy said, still holding onto Scooby. “What do we do until then?”

“Finding shelter would be a nice idea!” Daphne called. She squinted as she attempted to look through the relentless blizzard. “Look, there’s another waystation!” She looked to Vincent, as though silently asking if he’d be willing to trust them that his name was, indeed, cleared.

Vincent sighed quietly. These youngsters had trusted him without question numerous times in the past year. Now, it would be his turn to trust them.

**********************************

The man in charge of the waystation didn’t even give Vincent a second glance, but he had initially balked at the idea of letting them rent out some of the rooms to rest for the night when they’d had no local currency. But after Daphne bartered for their stay with her pearl earrings (assisted by some of Flim-Flam’s haggling skills), the man felt sorry for them, and not only let them stay, but threw in a hot meal and even some spare winter gear after he heard they were planning to climb the mountain. He also didn’t object to Scooby and Scrappy staying, thankfully—having three retrievers of his own running around the waystation, the man clearly had a soft spot for dogs.

Scrappy and Flim-Flam, being the youngest, had been on a quest for more sleep while Vincent sat at a small table, deep in thought as he gazed into a lamp that had been set on the tabletop.

After a while, however, Shaggy, Daphne, and Scooby ended up joining him.

“Do you need anything?” he asked them.

“No,” Daphne said. “We just wanted to know how you were doing.”

“Well, I’m perfectly fine now, thanks to you,” Vincent assured them.

“And we’re grateful for that, Sir,” Shaggy said. “But we meant how were you holding up?”

“I should be asking you that,” Vincent said. “I don’t know exactly what you did to our ‘host’ to gain his ire, but—”

“There was this glowing eye in that pool of dark magic you were trapped in, and when I was using the axe to try to free you from it, I accidently hit it when it showed up,” Shaggy said, with a shudder. “…I don’t think he liked that very much.”

“And now he’s marked you as another one of his victims,” Vincent realized. “I am sorry, Shaggy.”

“Like, I had to get you out of that stuff,” Shaggy said. “Not even a coward like me could leave you in that—”

“You are not a coward, Shaggy,” Vincent insisted. Scooby opened his mouth to say something, but Vincent cut him off, as well. “And neither are you, Scooby.”

“Rhuh?”

“Uh… I think you might need some more rest, Mr. V,” Shaggy said.

“I know what I’m saying,” Vincent said, biting back a smirk. “A coward would never have come here and followed this far—and certainly wouldn’t have faced a dark sorcerer when he didn’t have any mana of his own.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you two that for years,” Daphne said. “I know Fred would always tease you two about how you always wanted to run from the crooks, but I know he would agree with me—Velma, too. When the chips were down, we were always able to count on you. And even now, when the monsters are real, that hasn’t changed. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking back at the village, Mr. Van Ghoul might not have made it.”

Shaggy glanced at Vincent, trying not to think about that.

“Well, it was worth it to have you back, Mr. V,” he said. “I’d do it again if I had to.”

“That means a lot, Shaggy. Thank you. And you, as well, Daphne.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright, too,” she said, rubbing a few tears from her eyes.

Scooby blinked, a bit confused since he hadn’t seen the worst of it, but he was quickly putting the pieces together of what he missed.

“Rhi wish Rhi could’ve relped…” he said.

“But you did, Scooby,” Vincent said. “All of you. I could hear you.”

“You could?” Daphne asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’ve only ever been badly burned like that once before, and the last time that happened, I was alone…” He shut his eyes, briefly. “I honestly don’t know how I survived that; it was easier this time because I had your voices to guide me.”

Daphne froze.

“…Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?” she asked.

“What _is_ he talking about?” Shaggy asked, not having put the pieces together yet.

Daphne tried to shush him, but Vincent stopped her.

“It’s alright,” he said. “In a way, it was my fault. Mortals had a low opinion of the magic arts in those days, and with my power as great as it was, I was a giant target for them. Our host was right about _that_ one thing, at any rate…”

Now it was Shaggy’s turn to freeze.

“Wait, are we talking about the witch hunts?” he asked. “…Zoinks! I never thought…!”

“Rhe neither!” Scooby explained.

“Well, it wasn’t something I brought up,” Vincent admitted.

“And you don’t have to now,” Daphne said. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“No, I suppose that, after all this time, maybe I can get some sort of closure,” Vincent said. “Before all this started, I’d spent most of my time traveling on my own after the duel on that mountaintop. I was alone, and yet, I had the opportunity to meet people. One of these people—a mortal just like you—actually convinced me to let him travel with me for some time. However, he met an untimely end after helping me fulfill a rather personal quest.”

“I’m sorry,” Daphne said.

Shaggy and Scooby also offered their sentiments, as well.

“Thank you. But it was after this that I received word from Voudini about the trouble in Europe. I didn’t want to lose anyone else, so… I made myself a target for the witch hunters to draw the attention away from the others.” Vincent sighed. “The plan worked too well—the stories of how powerful I was were already a source of worry among my fellow mages—once the mortals got wind of that, I was—very quickly—their most wanted warlock.”

“I know the mortals were just afraid of anything that had magic,” Shaggy said. “But why were the other magicians afraid of you?”

“You recall Lady Pallas mentioning about my ancestor who was the greatest sorcerer of his time—the one corrupted by Hades into breaking his vow and using his powers for evil?” Vincent asked. “Well, once I showed a similar level of skill with my powers, almost everyone assumed that, as his heir, I would be susceptible to the same corruption.”

“Rhat’s not fair!” Scooby exclaimed.

“Scooby’s right—you’re not doomed to repeat your ancestor’s actions!” Daphne said. “My ancestors were Scottish lairds—you don’t see _me_ running around in a tartan and fighting the English!”

“Lucky for me— _my_ ancestors were the English,” Shaggy said, with a wan smile. “Well, before they came over and settled in Plymouth…”

“Nevertheless, it’s what several other mages believed, and then the mortals believed it, too,” Vincent said. “I’d managed to evade them for quite a while, but I got distracted…”

“Mr. Voudini said you stopped to help a child who was drowning,” Daphne recalled.

“Yes. I knew I was throwing away my chance at escaping, and yet…”

“You couldn’t just do nothing,” Shaggy realized, seeing the parallels to what had happened back at the village. “Even if you knew you were in for it, you had to help someone who needed your help.”

“I don’t regret it,” Vincent admitted. “Even if what happened next were the most terrifying moments of my life. There was no need for a trial—they knew what I was. They tied me to a tree trunk and set some kindling alight at my feet…”

He trailed off, shutting his eyes again, and he felt all three of the others hug him again.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Shaggy said. 

“No one deserved that,” Daphne added. “But especially not someone like you.”

“Rheah, not rhou!” Scooby agreed.

“Well, most of the mortals there didn’t think so,” Vincent recalled. “But the mother of the child I’d saved felt guilty enough to set me free long enough to teleport out. I arrived in Tibet and managed to make it to the castle before I passed out. As I said, I still don’t know how I survived that time.”

“We’re glad you did,” Shaggy said. “Like, where would we be without you, Mr. V?”

“Not here,” he reminded them. “You’d be safe in the States where you belong.”

“Do you really think that matters to us now?” Daphne said. “I can’t believe that just before all this started, I was worried about my performance review for the _Chronicle_. That’s so unimportant now—all that matters now is that we’re all okay.”

“Rhat means rhou, too,” Scooby added.

“I am honored by your declarations of loyalty, in spite of the fact that I’ve repeatedly dragged you into my problems,” Vincent sighed.

“Hey, well, Scoob and I opened the Chest of Demons and dragged you into that, so we’re even,” Shaggy said, with a shrug.

“…Actually, that _has_ been my problem even before you opened it,” Vincent admitted. “That personal quest I mentioned that took the life of my mortal companion? …I once had to recapture the 13 Ghosts, as well.”

He hadn’t been sure what to expect for their reactions, but, though they were surprised, nothing else in their attitude had changed, much to his relief.

“Like, wow, that explains a lot,” Shaggy realized. “Like why Nekara and Rankor had it in for you.”

“Rhand why rhou were so mad at us rhat first,” Scooby realized. “Rhe undid all of your hard work!”

“Yes, that was why I was… not as helpful as I should’ve been at the start,” Vincent admitted. “I was more than a bit bitter, but I truly am sorry about that. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“But then you stepped up and helped us more than you’ll ever know,” Daphne said. “We were in it together, and now, we’re in _this_ together.”

“And, like, we’re gonna see it through together,” Shaggy added.

“Rheah! Together!” Scooby barked.

And though he was not normally such an optimist, Vincent couldn’t help but believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I’ve mentioned before, I’m mostly ignoring all of the retcons that the _Curse_ movie did, but I am keeping Vincent’s backstory, as it really gave a lot of depth to his character and explained his initial fury at the 13 Ghosts being released again. The exception to this is that, in my timeline, Mortifer is actually dead—WB seemed to have forgotten (or just didn’t care) for the _Curse_ movie that Vincent was supposed to be over 2000 years old and had Mortifer end up surviving regardless of being a mortal (despite the fact that Vincent was significantly younger in the flashbacks with Mortifer, so, in reality, centuries would have passed). Coupled with the fact that I thought it was an unnecessarily cruel twist to bring Mortifer back the way the movie did, I think it’s for the best. That being said, I fully intend to have Mortifer play a posthumous role later on in my timeline.


	9. The Time Before

The blizzard subsided by daybreak—the red moon had also sunk beneath the horizon, as well.

Shaggy was relieved to try on the winter gear that the waystation owner had thrown in with their stay; the tunic and snowpants weren’t heavy, but they were incredibly warm and fit perfectly over his t-shirt and jeans. And an odd-looking headpiece that resembled feathery earmuffs covered his ears comfortably, and, based on Scooby’s giggles, he clearly looked amusing in it.

“Laugh it up all you want, Scoob; this boy won’t be freezing up on that mountain, that’s for sure,” Shaggy insisted. He sighed, glancing at his canine companion. “I wish we had a set of this winter gear for you and Scrappy.”

“Rhe’ve got fur,” Scooby boasted.

“You say that now, Buddy, but, like, we haven’t even started our climb yet,” Shaggy said, putting on the matching gloves.

Scooby harrumphed and followed Shaggy outside, where the others were waiting. Daphne and Flim-Flam were also wearing their sets of winter gear over their clothes, feathery earmuff headpieces and all; Vincent was wearing the tunic and snowpants over his tuxedo, but he had outright refused to wear the headpiece, instead opting to fasten his cape over the winter gear and turning up the cape’s high collar to protect his ears that way.

“You and your aesthetics, Vince…” Flim-Flam teased. “…Though I think you have a point—I don’t think these earmuffs are my style, either.”

“Perhaps not, but this is most definitely a case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ You’ll keep your earmuffs on,” Vincent instructed.

“Aww…”

“Where’s Rhrappy?” Scooby asked, looking around for his nephew.

“Right here, Uncle Scooby!” Scrappy said, briefly poking his nose from beneath the collar of Flim-Flam’s tunic. “And right here is where I’m staying—it’s gonna be even colder on that mountaintop, and none of that winter stuff will fit me!”

“That’s probably the best thing we can do for him,” Daphne sighed. “Scooby, will you be alright?”

“Rheah, peachy!” Scooby assured her.

Vincent wasn’t so sure; granted, Scooby had more fur than Scrappy and could probably handle the cold better than his nephew, but the winds around that particular peak rivaled those in Tibet, and despite having lived in the castle for several months, none of these youngsters, aside from Flim-Flam, had ever wandered in that kind of weather before.

With a sigh, Vincent now unfastened his cape and placed it around Scooby.

“It’s rho warm!” Scooby exclaimed in surprised.

“Well, it ought to be—it’s enchanted,” Vincent returned. “It adjusts with the location and the weather to ensure optimum comfort to the wearer.”

“Rhwow! …Rhut what about rhou?” Scooby asked, as Vincent also placed the feathered earmuffs from his winter gear set to cover Scooby’s ears.

But Vincent gave the Great Dane a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry about me, Scooby; I’ll be fine,” he said, and he then turned to face the mountain—and the damaged peak where his life had changed forever. “The climb won’t be an easy one—and there’s no telling what will be waiting for us on the way there, but I can’t use my magic without attracting our enemy’s attention.”

“We’ve got this,” Daphne replied. “You just lead the way.”

Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and Flim-Flam nodded in agreement, and Vincent once again faced the mountain trail.

“Then, follow me.”

****************************

They climbed the trail up the mountain, not a single one of them complaining about either the cold or the strenuous climb. Vincent continued to lead the way, though he frequently looked back to check on them, insisting on rests at the various checkpoint cabins that dotted the trail, most of these were abandoned, but still welcome shelters to escape from the cold and the weariness for a little while, at least.

The entire day had gone by like this, and though they had feared the red moon rising again that night, the sky was dark and moonless—and a dazzling aurora was visible in the sky above the peak.

“Like, wow, you don’t see this in Tibet,” Shaggy commented.

“That’s ‘cause we’re not north enough,” Flim-Flam said. “But you know what, aside from the aurora, the clear mountain night really takes me back!”

“…Flim-Flam, you’re nine years old,” Daphne said. “Just how far back can you even go?”

“Hey, having fewer memories means I can remember ‘em better,” the boy grinned. “But yeah, it was on a clear and cold night like this, three years ago, when I dropped in on old Vince for the first time.”

Vincent glance back over his shoulder at the others.

“Call it a moment of weakness that I let him in,” he intoned.

“He _means_ mercy,” Flim-Flam said, sobering slightly. “I… kinda underestimated how cold it would be—I’d probably have frozen up there if Vince hadn’t intervened. But hey, I was six—what did you want from me?”

“But why would you even have been climbing those mountains when you were that young anyway?” Scrappy asked, briefly poking his nose out of the tunic again.

“Because I didn’t want to go back to the orphanage,” Flim-Flam stated. “I’d been on the run from them for a year—they wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. ‘Just be like all the other children—you’ll be adopted in no time at all.’ …Maybe I would’ve been. But I wouldn’t have been happy.”

“…You know, I understand that,” Daphne said.

“You do?” Flim-Flam asked.

“Yeah. My father is a soap magnate—both he and my mother expected me to join the business when I turned 18, but I wanted to be an investigative reporter instead. There were a _lot_ of discussions about it, believe me, but, in the end, I think they realized that I wouldn’t have been happy with that kind of career.”

Shaggy sighed; he’d remembered that period of time all too well—shortly after they’d broken up the gang after Velma joined NASA and Fred had left on his own to start his freelance writing career, Daphne’s parents had called her home, leaving Shaggy with Scooby and Scrappy to adventure on their own. Shaggy remembered the frustrated phone calls he’d received from Daphne during that time about her worries that her parents would never understand her true ambition—until Daphne had finally called him up, excited to announce that her parents had finally accepted her decision. She’d taken it solo at first while Shaggy and the dogs still did odd jobs for his uncle until she’d finally offered for them to form an investigation team. And that had led to this.

“Then you don’t blame me for running?” Flim-Flam asked.

“Well… there’s a difference between me standing up to my parents at 18 and you running away from the orphanage at 5,” Daphne reminded him. “But, as I said, I can understand why you did.”

“Yeah…” Flim-Flam sighed.

“But, like, what got you going up to Vincent’s mountain?” Shaggy asked.

“Well, I ended up at one of the monasteries up in the mountains—naturally, we all quickly realized I wasn’t a good fit there, either, but they still provided me with food and shelter since I was clearly in need of it. But I’d noticed that in the village nearby, people kept talking about one of the mountains, and not one of the famous big ones, either. Somewhere, they said, hidden among all the big peaks was a smaller one with a castle at the top—and in that castle was supposed to have been a powerful sorcerer who’d been there for the last three hundred years. They were calling it _Jadhugar_ Peak— _jadhugar_ is the Nepali word for ‘magician.’ I asked the monks what they knew about _Jadhugar_ Peak, and though most of them didn’t know too much, a few of them said that no one ever dared to go there on account of the sorcerer supposedly being the most powerful one ever known. One of the monks said that he still sensed a great power on that mountain, and that was enough for everyone to stay away—except me, that is. I knew I had to check this story out.”

“Rhy would rhou go after hearing rhat?” Scooby asked.

“Hey, you know what they say—‘go big, or go home.’ And I had no home to go to,” Flim-Flam replied, with a shrug. “I thought that, maybe, if I could work a little of my smooth-talking on this sorcerer, he could cast some sort of spell on the social workers to leave me alone so I could run around the village all I wanted. …I didn’t account for the possibility of a blizzard complicating things, though. I don’t even know how, but, somehow, I made it to the door of the castle.”

“Starved and hypothermic,” Vincent said, glancing back again. “I will never know _what_ you were thinking, trying something like that.”

“I told you, I was six—I _wasn’t_ thinking,” Flim-Flam shrugged.

“Hmm, _that_ was obvious…”

“But, you took him in,” Daphne said. “After three hundred years locked up in that castle, you finally opened up.”

Vincent glanced at her now; they hadn’t told Flim-Flam or Scrappy why he had locked himself away—they were still too young to learn about his attempted execution by the witch hunters. But it was true—Vincent had intended to continue avoiding mortals after that, and yet…

“As I said, it was a moment of weakness,” he said.

“He felt sorry for me, the big softy,” Flim-Flam added.

“…I will not dignify that with a response.”

“I think you just did, Mr. Van Ghoul,” Scrappy chuckled, peeking out of the tunic once more.

“Rheah, I think so, too,” Scooby grinned.

“…You’re free to think what you want,” Vincent said, after a moment.

“Well, softy or not, Mr. V, I know one thing is true—we’re lucky to have you with us,” Shaggy said.

Scooby’s grin faded slightly, realizing that Shaggy was thinking about everything Vincent had told them in that conversation about the witch hunters—and whatever it was that had happened in that village with the other warlock.

Vincent seemed to have realized it, as well.

“…Likewise,” he said, after a moment.

He continued to lead the way up the mountain, pondering on how his reputation for going soft seemed to have reached new heights. It was one thing when his companions brought it up—for them, it was reassuring. But their enemy had also scoffed at him for being soft, as had the shadow witch.

Vincent glanced back behind him once more, surprised to see that the others had closed the gaps between them and were walking together, close behind him, ready to come to his assistance if need be.

There were worse things he could be than soft, he realized. And if these were the repercussions of being soft, well… He’d accept them—gladly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a stickler for details and actually spent a few hours trying to find which mountain in the Himalayas Vincent lives on. I narrowed it down to the Mahalangur Himal region on the Nepal-Tibetan border. It can’t be one of the really tall peaks, as the gang and the deliveryman from Rankor’s episode can reach it and stay there without the need for supplemental oxygen, and 16,000 feet (5km) is around the cutoff point for that… but I couldn’t find any names for peaks that low, so I made up one of my own. _Jadhugar_ is, indeed, the Nepali and Hindi word for “magician,” so it made sense that the local villagers, having grown up hearing rumors of Vincent and his castle, would name the mountain after that.


	10. The Place to Go

As they climbed higher and as the winds grew fiercer, their pace slowed. Vincent could tell they were exhausted and uncomfortable, in spite of their winter gear.

“We’re nearly there,” he encouraged. “Probably a half-hour’s hike left—maybe less if we keep up this pace.”

Drained, they could only nod in response. And yet, Vincent knew that even if they could talk, they still wouldn’t complain…

A crunch beneath his foot caused Vincent to pause, glancing down at his feet. He quickly stepped back, seeing that he had stepped on the bones of a skeleton half-buried in the snow. The skull had an elongated snout and a large horn—it clearly wasn’t human, but, whatever it was, it wasn’t alone; ahead, as the path continued upward, there were more of these creatures’ skeletons lying in the snow.

“Like, what _are_ these things!?” Shaggy managed to ask over the wind, as Scooby now sniffed intently at one of the upper arm bones.

“I’m not sure…” Vincent said. “These skeletons have been here for a very long time, by the looks of it—almost perfectly preserved in the snow. The way they’re all lying here, it’s as if they all…” He glanced upward, towards the summit, a look of dread crossing his face. “…As if they all died at the same time.”

“Oh, like in an avalanche?” Flim-Flam asked.

“Perhaps… or, more likely, they got caught in the outer edge of an out-of-control spell by a young and reckless warlock…” Vincent said, the bitterness evident in his voice. “…I, most likely, am responsible for this.”

Scooby, who had picked up the arm bone in his mouth, now let it drop back to the ground, looking a bit awkward.

“Are you really sure about that?” Daphne asked. “Remember, that other warlock has been trying his hardest to let your guilt do his work for him.” She gave a quiet sigh, furious at how unfair it was that Vincent, as kind and caring as he was, could be gaslighted into thinking he was something horrible. His compassion was supposed to be his _strength_ , not his weakness…

“Yeah, that’s right!” Scrappy said, poking his nose out once more. “It’s just been one lie after another with that big creep!”

“…I suppose it’s possible that he wiped out all of these creatures to make it seem as though I did,” Vincent admitted.

“Rheah, Rhi’ll bet rhat’s it!” Scooby said.

“Yeah, I say we just finish this home stretch and talk about this around the fireplace—maybe with some nice, hot tea,” Shaggy said. “And maybe some of those tea biscuits, too…”

“Why not a whole meal?” Vincent snarked, glancing over his shoulder at the beatnik. He then froze, seeing one of the skeletons behind Shaggy suddenly emerge from the snow, standing to its full height, a whole head taller than Shaggy. The snout-like jaws opened, revealing jagged teeth.

These skeletons were the bones of monsters.

“Shaggy, behind you!” Vincent warned.

“Huh? What’s behind—? _ZOINKS_!”

He ran—they all ran; as they traversed through the mess of monster skeletons, more of them stood up, reaching for them with their bony hands. Daphne suddenly let out a shriek as one of them narrowly missed her.

Scooby, very briefly, however, chose to make a stand after that. He growled at the offending skeleton, and then bit down on the creature’s lower arm bones.

The skeletal monster let out an angered hiss and shook its arm vigorously, but Scooby still clung on in spite of his fear. The creature then drew its arm back, Scooby still biting it, as though it was going to throw something—and its gaze was fixed on the cliff that the mountain trail ran alongside.

“Scooby, let go!” Vincent ordered, realizing what it was planning.

But Scooby didn’t react in time; the creature swung its arm out… and then detached it. The momentum sent the arm—with Scooby still holding on to it—over the cliff.

“SCOOBY!”

The others’ voices had almost been in perfect unison; they all ran to the cliff’s edge, but Vincent had already had his hand raised—

“ _Levitate_!”

Swirls of green magic poured from his fingertips, wrapping around the falling dog and securing him. Scooby was shaking like a leaf as Vincent brought him back to the mountain trail, but only let out a panicked shout as, from their high vantage point on the slope, they saw a castle, far-off in the distance, suddenly erupt with a storm of dark magic whipping up around it—and in the middle of this storm of darkness was a large beast-like shape, with one of its eyes partly damaged as it glared in the direction of the peak, opening its gigantic jaws, and roaring. Even the monster skeletons stopped to stare at it, and Vincent quickly used his Temporal Chains spell on them to make sure they wouldn’t attack while they were distracted.

“What… What is that thing!?” Daphne asked, as she, Shaggy, Flim-Flam, and Scrappy now hugged the terrified Scooby.

“It’s _him_ …” Vincent answered, staring at the beast. “He sensed my magic being used and finally showed himself. …But that wasn’t how he looked the last time we met; I swear he looked human!”

That was, however, the least of their worries; the other warlock, realizing how close they were to the end of their quest, now sent several bolts of dark magic from his location, zooming towards the mountaintop. The snow whipped up as the magic swirled around the monster skeletons, and then, once the Temporal Chains broke, the snow and magic surrounded them, creating a monstrous-looking creature made up of snow and bones, carrying a sword made of ice in each of its skeletal hands. The creature leered at them as two glowing eyes appeared in the sockets of the large skull that served as its head—one of the eyes glowing less intently than the other.

The thing then raised one of the ice swords, aiming it at them, but Vincent quick cast Temporal Chains again, struggling to keep the creature in place.

“Vince!? What do we do!?” Flim-Flam asked.

“You’re going to run!” Vincent instructed. “Our goal was only a little bit further—you can make it if you hurry—use the gate and go home!”

“No!” Daphne shot back. “We almost lost you once, Vincent! We are _not_ doing this again!”

“Daphne’s right—we can’t go back without you!” Scrappy added.

“Rhease come with us!” Scooby begged, feeling terribly guilty—after all, Vincent had only used his magic to save him—if he hadn’t had to cast that levitation spell, they would’ve made it to the gate already.

“We said we were in this together!” Shaggy added.

Vincent still struggled to hold the creature in place.

“Can’t you think of yourselves for once in your lives!?” he said, through gritted teeth.

They didn’t answer; Shaggy instead glanced at Daphne, who nodded, sensing what he was thinking.

“On three, Shaggy,” she said. “One… two… three!”

Shaggy and Daphne quickly ran forward, each of them grabbing one of Vincent’s arms and pulling him away from the creature as the Temporal Chains broke, and they practically dragged Vincent along with them as they and the others now ran along the trail towards the top of the mountain.

“What do you think you’re _doing_!?” Vincent demanded. “This isn’t going to work! We need to put enough distance between you and that thing!”

They looked back, seeing the creature lumbering behind them with both swords aimed right at them.

“…I think I have an idea,” Shaggy realized. “…I can’t believe it’s my idea, though.” He gulped. “All those times I tried to convince Fred not to ask me to be the bait, and here I am, volunteering… And those monsters weren’t even real…”

“Rhaggy…?” Scooby asked, concerned for him.

“Mr. V, I need you to cover me with that spell you used to save Scoob.”

Vincent looked dead-set against it, but Shaggy had already let go of his arm and walked towards the creature.

“Shaggy, be careful!” Daphne pleaded.

“Hey, Double-Ugly!” Shaggy called. “Over here! It’s me—the mortal with that axe, remember?”

The fiend turned on him, and Shaggy made his way towards the cliff’s edge ever so carefully, as though he was backing away, intimidated.

“Regrets… regrets… regrets…” he stammered, his better judgement now kicking in. “Ohhhh _boy_ , do I have regrets…”

The fiend charged at him with both swords drawn—

“ _Levitate_!”

The swirls of green magic now surrounded Shaggy, pulling him out of the way just in time; the fiend was the one that was sent sailing over the cliff this time with a furious screech.

Shaggy exhaled and crashed to his knees. Scooby bounded over to him and put a paw on his shoulder.

“Rhou okay, Rhaggy?” he asked.

“…I’ll let you know when my heart restarts…” he said, shaking slightly now that the adrenaline had worn off. He glanced up as Vincent walked over to him. “Thanks for the backup, Mr. V…”

Vincent gently took Shaggy by the arm and helped him to his feet.

“Perhaps I should be the one thanking you for your plan,” he admitted. “You’ve done more than could be expected of you, but I’m afraid I can’t give you time to rest at the moment—that thing will be back. You’ve bought us enough time to get to the gate, but only if we go right this moment.”

“Yeah, I’m with Vince on this; I’ve had more than enough of this place,” Flim-Flam sighed.

“I think we all have,” Scrappy added, still glancing over at Shaggy in concern. “This wasn’t exactly a relaxing getaway…”

Daphne walked over to him now, and gently gave Shaggy’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.

“Hang in there just a little bit longer,” she encouraged. “I know you can. We’re nearly there.”

Shaggy managed a nod.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Let’s get outta here.”

Satisfied, Vincent began to usher the others up the mountain trail once more, pausing every few moments to glance back at the far-off beast that was still glaring at them—and no doubt trying to re-summon that snow-and-skeleton amalgamation—or, perhaps, conjure up something else for them to deal with.

It wasn’t the threat of facing that creature again that was concerning him now; it was that form of the beast that swirled around in the distance, watching them. The enemy warlock had presented himself in his mental messages in his humanoid form; what had caused him to become this creature? Had it been of his own choice—a way to prove his dominion over the mortal world?

It wasn’t the first time Vincent had heard of such a thing happening; his own ancestor’s corruption had led to him either losing or abandoning his human form, as well, and becoming a demon—the final escaped captive of the Chest, in fact.

Had it been a choice? Vincent had heard back in his school days that a warlock’s power could increase if they took a larger, nonhuman form. That had never concerned nor appealed to him in the past, so he had never followed up on finding out if that changed form was voluntary or not.

…But what if the metamorphosis was simply the eventual fate of powerful mages, no matter what they wanted? To eventually lose their very humanity on account of their power being too great to sustain a human form?

…And, if it wasn’t a voluntary choice, then how long would it be before that fate befell _him_?

He suppressed these new, growing concerns; he had other things to worry about right now—the kids, first and foremost. If nothing else, he would, at least, ensure that they returned home safely.


	11. Try to Guess Now

The remainder of the trek up the mountain went by quickly; the last narrow escape had spurred everyone into reaching their destination as quickly as they could.

“Stop!” Vincent instructed, after they’d reached a flattened part of the peak—the hole caused by Vincent’s Ultima spell from all those years ago.

“But we haven’t reached the top yet,” Flim-Flam pointed out. “You only took out half the peak, Vince—there’s still higher we can climb!”

“Voudini, Boris, and I never made it to the top; we rested here, aiming to climb further when we were attacked. This is where we’ll find the gate, believe me.”

“It’s probably buried under a lot of snow,” Daphne realized. “That lady said that no one’s been here for thousands and thousands of years.”

“I don’t think so,” Vincent replied. “The gate that appeared outside my castle was brand new; the companion gate to send us back should also be new; this lady you spoke to would have had no way of knowing if anyone had been here.”

“Rhut it’s not rhere!” Scooby said, sniffing around in the snow.

“You don’t suppose that meanie and the shadow witch lied about there being a second gate?” Scrappy asked.

“It’s possible, but one-way gates like the one that brought us here are almost always created in pairs,” Vincent said.

“There has to be one,” Daphne agreed. “Why else would he have tried to stop us from climbing this mountain once he found out how close we were?”

“Okay, so… where is it?” Flim-Flam asked.

“Uh… Would this gate be a bunch of weird shapes and squiggles all carved in a big circle?” Shaggy asked.

“Yes, those carvings would be runes that would need to be activated in order to open the gate,” Vincent said.

“Groovy—then I found it.”

They all glanced at Shaggy, who had been leaning against the part of the peak that had survived Vincent’s spell, albeit after having been flattened by the spell; behind him, carved on the flat side of the mountain, were the runes he’d described. In the center of the circle were two depressions meant for hands—and, arranged in a star pattern around the central depressions were five more sets of depressions all around the edge of the circle.

“Rhow do we ropen it?” Scooby asked.

“Give me just a moment to read the runes; they’ll tell us what to do…” Vincent began, but then he trailed off. “Oh, no…”

“…I don’t like ‘Oh no’s. They’re never good,” Shaggy gulped.

“The good news is that this gate is the matching one-way portal that will take us back to our world,” Vincent informed them.

“…And the bad news?” Daphne asked.

Vincent exhaled, staring at the runes that stood between them and the way home.

“This gate can only be activated by blood magic.”

“…What does that mean!?” Flim-Flam asked, his eyes wide.

“Not what you’re thinking,” he assured them, seeing that they all had similar expressions, as though they were expecting something along the lines of someone needing to draw blood. “Blood magic is just an archaic way of saying that those who attempt an endeavor—in this case, opening this gate—need to have familial ties.”

“Oh, so me and Uncle Scooby could do it?” Scrappy asked.

“You would be able to… except neither of you have any mana. If order for blood magic to work, at least one of the ones involved needs to have mana,” Vincent sighed.

“Oh…” Scrappy said. “Gee, that’s too bad.”

Daphne’s face fell for a moment, but she quickly pushed the disappointment aside to put on a brave face for the others.

“Okay…” she said. “So… for now, we need to find somewhere else to go—somewhere safe where that other warlock can’t find us.”

“Yeah,” Shaggy sighed. “We gotta go before Double-Ugly comes up with that thing again. I really don’t wanna be the bait again.”

“And hey, going _down_ the mountain will be easier,” Flim-Flam grinned.

“Rheah, let’s go,” Scooby agreed.

Vincent just stared at them as they all moved to go back the way they had come. After he’d led them all here for nothing, dashing any hopes they’d had of going home, they didn’t hold it against him. They didn’t even think of asking him to try something else—no, they never asked him anything, save for that moment back at the village when Daphne and Shaggy had been pleading with him just to stay alive.

As much as he knew they would accept living here, in this dangerous and unfamiliar world, without complaint, Vincent knew he couldn’t let them down now. They were too tired, too drained to climb down the mountain, especially with the threat of being attacked on the way down.

“Wait!” he called.

They paused, looking back at him in surprise.

“There may still be a way that I can open this gate,” he said. “My power is great enough that I could, possibly, force the gate open with my magic if I focus all of it at those central depressions.”

“…But, like, that would drain your mana, wouldn’t it?” Shaggy asked.

“What if it doesn’t work, and your mana runs out?” Scrappy asked, his eyes wide.

“They’re right—you’d be completely vulnerable if that happened until you recovered!” Daphne exclaimed. Her face took on a horrified expression as Vincent now placed his gloved hands on the two central depressions. “Vincent, no!”

“Don’t do it, Vince!” Flim-Flam pleaded. “There’s gotta be another way!”

“Rhease, Mr. Van Ghoul!” Scooby barked.

But an emerald-green aura flared around Vincent, concentrating at his hands, and the others could only watch as Vincent began to burn through his mana. The gate trembled, trying to resist his attempts at forcing it open.

“We’ve got to stop him!” Daphne ordered.

She was the first to run over, trying to pull his arm away from the gate, but he seemed to have put himself in some sort of stasis in order to completely focus—she couldn’t budge him, not even slightly. Nor could the others, who had also run over to try to move him.

Daphne now switched tactics, hammering on the gate with her fists. It did nothing—until her hand struck one of the depressions on the outer edge of the circle. For the brief moment her hand had hit the depression, it had glowed with the same emerald green glow.

“Daphne, do that again!” Shaggy exclaimed. He placed his hands on another pair of depressions—which also began to glow.

“…But how?” Daphne asked, placing her hands back—and also causing them to glow. “How can we activate the blood magic lock?”

“Who cares!?” Flim-Flam replied, placing his hands on another set of depressions.

Scrappy placed his paws on another set, and Scooby stood up on his hind legs to place his paws on the final set.

As all six sets of depressions glowed, the runes carved on the gate began to glow—and then, the two halves of the gate began to pull apart, revealing another portal.

Vincent came out of his trance at last, a bit dizzy from having started his attempt at forcing the gate open, but he stared as he began to register what he was seeing.

“Um…” Shaggy said. “Mr. V? You did say that blood magic was about family ties, didn’t you?”

“That is what I said, yes…” Vincent said, still staring at the now-open gate. “As I also mentioned, it is an archaic term.” He paused. “So archaic, in fact, it would appear to have not taken into consideration the possibility of family by choice, rather than by blood.”

He’d said it himself, hadn’t he, when the other warlock had threatened the others in his dream? _“Stay away from my kids!”_

To think, at first, he had wanted as little to do with them as possible… And yet, without even trying, they’d ended up being the closest thing to family he’d ever known.

Another roar from where the swirling, dark-magic-powered beast drew all of their attention. He’d sensed the opened gate, and was, no doubt, attempting to summon the snow-and-skeleton creature once more—they could hear it thundering up the mountain path.

“Zoinks! The thing is back!” Shaggy yelped.

“Through the gate—quickly!” Vincent ordered, gently ushering them through the open portal.

He’d half-considered taking on the amalgamation himself to buy them more time, but the others had already anticipated that option; they’d all taken a cue from Daphne and Shaggy’s earlier bid to get him to go with them—and had all grabbed onto his arms to make sure he was going with them.

Having been transported from one mountain to another, their sudden landing in yet another snowbank had them temporarily questioning whether they truly had made it back—but looking behind them to see the castle that was now home was all the reassurance they needed.

“Yippie! We made it!” Scrappy exclaimed, as Vincent now led them back across the castle’s threshold to the safety of the protective barrier.

“Impossible!” the shadow witch screech. She glared at Vincent, who glared right back at her from the edge of the barrier. “You made it back alive!?”

“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but I told you so,” Weerd quipped.

“Yeah, you underestimated them,” Bogel added.

“You stay out of this!” she quipped at them, before glaring back at Vincent. “You should be dead. You _were_ almost dead! How did you survive!? How did you break the lock on the gate!?”

“The answer to both of those questions is the same,” Vincent responded. “My survival and my return were all thanks to… Hmm, what was the phrase you used? Ah, yes—those ‘waifs and strays’ that I’d taken under my wing!”

“But… the lock was blood magic!” she sputtered.

“It needs a new name,” Vincent snarked.

The sorceress found herself at a loss for words—but she was soon spared from saying anything as the snow-and-skeleton creature now appeared, brandishing its ice swords as it roared, prompting Bogel and Weerd to clutch at each other in sheer fright.

“Uh-oh!” Flim-Flam gulped. “I guess we should’ve closed that gate behind us—”

He was cut off as the crystal ball was once again hijacked by the enemy sorcerer’s wounded eye.

“ _Fools_!” he thundered. “ _It matters not whether I end this in my realm or yours, but end it, I shall—make no mistake!_ ” The snow-and-skeleton creature now pointed one of the ice blades directly at Vincent. “ _Step out of that barrier and accept your fate, Warlock, or I will unleash this beast upon every village in these mountains and all who live in them!_ ”


	12. Into the Present

Vincent glared back at the amalgamation in silent fury. He had successfully gotten the others home and safely behind the protective barrier, and yet, their enemy was determined to ensure he would never know peace.

…Perhaps that was simply yet another curse to bear for being so powerful. But he would bear it.

He ignored the protests and pleas from the others as he stepped out from behind the barrier, much to the amusement of the shadow witch and to the bewilderment of Bogel and Weerd.

“I will face my fate, but I will not surrender to it so easily,” he declared. “This place is my home, and I will defend it—just as I defend the ones under my care!”

The other warlock’s eye glared at the gang for a moment before turning his attention back to Vincent.

“ _You endeavor to protect that which is worthless_ ,” he declared. “ _You could have, long ago, made yourself a god among these mortals. You could have chosen to rule multiple realms. And you cast it all aside—for what?_ ”

“You could never hope to understand,” Vincent replied. He suddenly aimed his right hand at the snow-and-skeleton creature. “ _Fira_!”

The ice blade that had been pointed at him now melted away as Vincent lobbed a fireball at it, leading to a growl of frustration from the other warlock.

The shadow witch took that as her cue.

“ _DarkFira_!”

She sent another handful of dark fire at Vincent.

“Rhook out!” Scooby yelped.

“ _Reflect_!”

The dark fireball deflected—right into the snow-and-skeleton creature, melting the other ice sword.

“ _Veran, you fool!_ ” the enemy warlock hissed.

The shadow witch looked slightly embarrassed.

“Hey, usually that’s the kinda blunder we make,” Bogel commented.

“Not now, Dummy!” Weerd hissed, dragging him into a snowbank.

The enemy warlock ignored them, realizing that he was limited with what he could do now.

“ _In his domain, he does, indeed, have the advantage. Heed me, Veran; use the gate and return to me—and bring me his emerald!_ ” he ordered. “ _Let’s see if he can keep singing his same tune once I’ve infected his emerald with my malice—if I cannot destroy him, then I will make him my servant!_ ”

“NO!” Daphne shrieked.

“ _Diaga_!” Vincent snapped, sending another flash of light magic at the shadow witch.

This one made contact, knocking the shadow witch off of her feet for a moment, but she was soon back up again, leering at Vincent as she held his emerald pendant in her hand, raising it to her lips to give it a taunting kiss.

“We can’t let them do that to Mr. V!” Shaggy fretted. “Try and stall ‘em—I’ve got an idea!”

As Shaggy ran back inside, Vincent aimed another Diaga spell, but the amalgamation took the hit again, roaring at Vincent. As he now tried to send more fireball spells at the beast, the shadow witch now collected her torch with the blue flame, opening the first gate again by setting it alight.

Stalling wasn’t going to be an option, Daphne realized, as Vincent’s attempts to get his emerald back ended with the amalgamation blocking his way, until, finally, it seized him with its skeletal hands, pinning his arms at his sides—leaving him unable to cast any spells.

Even as Daphne ran out from behind the barrier, the others did, as well; Scooby once again sunk his teeth into one of the arm bones of the creature, and Scrappy chewed on the other, while Flim-Flam followed Daphne, who was heading for the shadow witch.

As the amalgamation shrieked, trying to shake the two dogs off of its arms while still trying to hold Vincent, Daphne, out of desperation as the shadow witch approached the open gate, launched into a flying tackle, knocking the sorceress off of her feet—and away from the open gate.

Taken by surprise, the witch was too stunned to retaliate; and Daphne now grabbed the emerald pendant from her.

“Flim-Flam!” she called, tossing it to him.

“I got it!” the boy exclaimed, cleanly catching it in one hand.

“ _NO_!” the enemy warlock roared, just before his eye vanished from the crystal ball.

“You!” the shadow witch hissed at Daphne, grasping her by the wrist as she tried to get away. “You miserable little…!”

For a moment, Daphne thought the witch had been at a loss for words as she trailed off, but her voice now erupted into a furious screech as, in front of Daphne’s eyes, she transformed into a gigantic spider. The hand that had been holding Daphne’s wrist now turned into one of eight arms, which lashed out, sending Daphne flying; she hit the ground hard, but was soon back on her feet.

“Whoa…!” Flim-Flam yelped. He’d been running back towards Vincent and the dogs, but now he froze, not sure if Daphne needed help more than Vincent, who was desperately trying to free himself from the beast’s grip.

“Forget about me!” Daphne instructed, as she ran from the giant spider. “Help Vincent! _Go_!”

Flim-Flam hesitated a moment, but nodded, running over and helping Scrappy with his arm that he’d been trying to pull back. With a determined growl, Scooby pushed off against the beast with all four paws, moving the creature’s arm just enough to loosen its grip, allowing Vincent to get one of his arms free…

“ _Temporal Chains_!”

Even as the beast froze in place, Vincent had teleported out of its grasp, reappearing between Daphne and the shadow witch’s giant spider form, and reached his right hand towards the sky.

“ _Thundara_!”

The giant spider emitted a pained shriek as the lightning bolt struck her; Shaggy, who was now running out of the castle again—with the Chest of Demons in his hands—did a double-take as he saw the wayward arachnid.

“Zoinks! Well, there’s plenty of room in the Chest for both of ‘em, I guess…!”

Vincent used his left hand to release the Temporal Chains on the snow-and-skeleton beast as Shaggy opened the Chest, drawing the amalgamation into it.

Shaggy then turned to face the shadow witch’s spider form, causing her to shriek in alarm now; in spite of the damage she’d sustained from Vincent’s Thundara spell, she forced herself to retreat, desperate not to let herself get captured. Realizing that he had her on the run, Shaggy actually attempted to pursue her.

“ _Temporal Chains_!” Vincent called, hoping to get her to stay in one place long enough for Shaggy to get close.

But the shadow witch had anticipated this; at the last moment, she changed from her spider form to that of the shadowy mass that she had first appeared as, slithering in between the chains and across the ground, into the open gate—her arm briefly emerged from the shadowy mass to grab the blue-flamed torch as she went through the gate, which, without the fire to fuel it, once again closed behind her.

Dizzy again from having spent additional mana, Vincent had to take a moment to steady himself as Shaggy sighed in disappointment.

“Like, I almost had her… Oh! Mr. V, are you alright!?”

“I’ll… I’ll be fine,” he promised, as the others all gathered around him. “That was some very quick thinking—from all of you. Thank you.”

…A simple “thank you” seemed so inadequate, really—not after they had endured so much along the way, including saving his life… and then saving him from what could have been, perhaps, an even worse fate—for as bad as death was, Vincent had found the idea of getting corrupted and joining this other warlock as simply unthinkable.

“…So, does that mean you’re not mad that we stepped outside of the protective barrier?” Scrappy asked, bringing him out of his thoughts.

“Oh, I’m furious—but after having used up as much mana as I have, this is about as furious as I can get.”

Scooby let out a nervous chuckle; it was one of those moments when they never could tell if Vincent was being serious or not.

“Well, uh…” Flim-Flam said, also suppressing a nervous laugh. “If it’ll help, here’s this back.”

He held up the emerald pendant that Daphne had taken from the shadow witch. Vincent took it, managing a sigh of relief. He was free from that other warlock’s intrusion into his mind now, thank goodness—to say nothing of being free from the crystal being hijacked or his teleportation being interfered with.

“That’s that over and done with. Except, there’s just one last thing…” He turned around, glancing at the nearby snowbank. “Shaggy, get the Chest ready.”

Shaggy took a step forward, prompting Bogel and Weerd to pop out of the snowbank in a panic.

“Wait, wait!” Weerd protested. “We had nothin’ to do with this!”

“It was all them!” Bogel agreed. “We were just gonna pick up the Chest after the barrier went down, is all!”

“ _Bogel_ …” Weerd fumed. He turned back to face Vincent and the others. “Look, we’re going—we’re gone!”

He vanished, prompting Bogel to yelp and follow suit.

“…And that will, hopefully, be the last we hear from them for a while,” Vincent said, now allowing his dizziness to show now that all threats had been taken care of.

Will you be alright?” Daphne asked, concern evident in her voice. “I can contact Mr. Voudini and ask him to brew up another mana potion, like last time…”

“There’s no need to bother Voudini about this; I just need to rest—and now, I can finally afford to rest,” Vincent assured her. “We _all_ can—the five of you look ready to drop right here and now, as well.”

Once again, he found himself ushering his patchwork family along, in spite of his vertigo; it wasn’t as bad as last time, thankfully. And, at last, they crossed the threshold and returned to the welcoming halls once more.

Everything was as they’d left it; the lights were on up in the study and in Daphne’s room. It was warm. It was comfortable. It was safe.

It was _home_.

**Epilogue**

Daphne had only managed to get a little bit of sleep before her right arm woke her up. She’d landed right on it when the shadow witch had sent her flying after her transformation into the giant spider. Turning on the light, she frowned to see her elbow had swollen up, the area looking dark purple—and it hurt like the dickens.

Wincing, she pulled her robe over her nightgown and headed into the corridor of the turret. It was still very quiet—everyone must’ve still been asleep. Even as she crept down the stairwell, she paused to see if Vincent was awake in his study.

The study was empty.

 _He must’ve been more drained than he wanted to let on_ , she realized.

And now, a fresh wave of guilt washed over her as she continued her trek down to the castle’s kitchen, poking around until she found what she was looking for—a hot water bottle. She filled it up with hot water from the sink, sat down at the kitchen table, rolled up her robe’s sleeve, and rested her hurt elbow on the hot water bottle.

Alone with her thoughts, the guilt that surrounded her now crept in further into her mind. With no threats to focus on, all she could think of now was what had happened on their journey through that land—how Vincent had been ready to sacrifice himself to save them, more than once… and how he nearly had back in that village—that horrible, forsaken village…

 _He was dying_ , she reminded herself. _He was dying right in front of our eyes when Shaggy and I found him. And it would’ve been my fault. The only reason Vincent was there at all in that place was because he went through the gate to find me. …Well,_ that’s _a new low for Old Danger-Prone Daphne—I nearly got the world’s most powerful warlock killed!_

She blinked back a few tears, but suddenly froze as she heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. She stood up, hastily pulling the sleeve of her robe back over her arm as the lights went on, revealing Shaggy and Scooby.

They clearly hadn’t expected to see anyone there; they both yelped in alarm before realizing it was just her.

“What are you doing here in the dark!?” Shaggy exclaimed.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here!? What are _you_ two doing here!?” she returned.

“Rhe’re hungry!” Scooby said, stating the obvious.

“Scoob woke me up because of his hunger pangs,” Shaggy said, grabbing a bag of trail mix from one of the larder shelves and pouring it into a serving bowl. “And that was when I realized I was hungry, too. We hadn’t eaten since we left the last rest stop on that mountain back in that place—but I guess we were all too wiped out to realize how hungry we were when we finally made it back.”

He and Scooby each took a handful of trail mix, sighing quietly in contentment as they took the edge off of their appetites.

“You didn’t come down here for food?” Shaggy asked, through a full mouth.

“No, I… came here for some water,” she replied. Well it wasn’t a _total_ lie… “But, now that you mention it, I think I _am_ a little hungry, too.”

She reached for a handful of trail mix with her left hand as Shaggy tried to stop her.

“Uh, Daphne, you should know that’s the…” He winced as a wide-eyed look crossed her face as she ate the trail mix. “…Siracha blend.”

Scooby now grabbed an apple from the nearest fruit bowl and handed it to Daphne; once again, she used her left hand to grab it and quickly took a few bites out of it to quell the fire in her mouth.

“Thanks. You know, Velma was right about you,” she sighed, once she could talk again. “You really do have a stomach of scrap iron—both of you!”

Shaggy and Scooby glanced at each other and shrugged, and Daphne shook her head.

“I think I’ll go back to bed before anything else happens,” she said. She’d have to come back for the water bottle later…

“Rhoodnight,” Scooby offered, through another mouthful.

“Goodnight,” she returned.

“Um… Daphne?” Shaggy asked. “Is something wrong with your arm? You’ve been using your left hand all this time.”

“Oh, gosh, I must’ve been so tired, I didn’t even realize it,” she bluffed.

“…Rhaphne…?” Scooby asked.

Shaggy had noticed the hot water bottle on the table now; he picked it up and glanced back at Daphne with a questioning look.

“…My arm has a little sprain, that’s all,” she insisted. She sighed at the disbelieving look on Shaggy’s face. “…You’re not buying this, huh?”

“Like, I’m not even renting it,” Shaggy replied, flatly. “What happened?”

“I landed on my arm when that shadow witch decked me after she turned into that spider,” Daphne admitted.

“Rhou should’ve told Mr. Van Ghoul!” Scooby said.

“ _No_!” she exclaimed. “You saw how exhausted he was already; he’d have tried that Esuna spell again, and he needed to conserve whatever strength he had left! It’s just a little sprain; I don’t know why you’re both making such a big fuss about it!”

“You’re the one who tried to hide it,” Shaggy pointed out. “And yet, you’ve completely switched to your left hand! That’s what makes me think it’s not so ‘little’ after all.”

“Fine; if Mr. Van Ghoul is feeling better in the morning, I’ll bring it up in the conversation,” she said. “Happy?”

Shaggy paused for a moment before choosing his next words carefully.

“I know why you’re acting like this, Daphne, but you don’t have to. This is about the village, isn’t it?”

She looked away for a moment.

“That and… other things. _Everything_ , really.” She looked back at Shaggy and Scooby. “Everything that happened was because of _me_. The shadow witch possessed _me_. _I_ was the one who fell through the gate, and Vincent went in after _me_. Everything he went through—believing he was still a wanted man, nearly dying at the village, draining himself to get the gate open on the mountain—was because of _me_. And I know what you’re going to say—that it was just bad luck I was the one the shadow witch chose, and that if she’d chosen either of you two, or Scrappy or Flim-Flam, nothing would’ve changed. I _know_ that. But it _was_ me, and so, he nearly died because of me!”

“You helped save him!” Shaggy reminded her.

“He wouldn’t have _needed_ saving if I hadn’t…” She trailed off. “I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

“…Rhaggy and Rhi _do_ understand,” Scooby replied.

“Yeah,” Shaggy sighed. “Maybe you forgot, but we nearly lost Mr. V twice before, and it was technically our fault—Scoob’s and mine. Remember Nekara and Rankor?”

“Who could forget _them_?” Daphne stated.

“Rhe let them out of the Chest…” Scooby sighed, staring at the floor.

“Yeah, like, they never would’ve targeted Mr. V if we hadn’t set them loose,” Shaggy added. “We’ve been living with that guilt for a while.”

“Oh, gosh…” Daphne sighed. “I didn’t even think… I’m sorry, Guys.” She looked down at the floor for a moment, as well. “…Vincent knew something like this would happen, didn’t he? That was why he wanted to send us back to the States when Athena first wanted to recruit him.”

“Rhe got him to change his mind,” Scooby pointed out.

“We didn’t give him much of a choice, did we?” Daphne said. “I hate to say it, but we acted pretty selfishly.”

“How do you figure that?” Shaggy asked. “We wanted to help Mr. V on his missions.”

“And we kept insisting that was what was best,” she said. “We never stopped to consider something like this would happen—that something out there would use us against Vincent. Maybe he was right after all—maybe we _should_ go back…”

“Whoa, like, wait a minute!” Shaggy exclaimed. “Now you’re swinging way too much the opposite direction!”

“Rheah!” Scooby agreed. “Mr. Van Ghoul wanted us to stay rheventually!”

“That’s right—Mr. Voudini said that sending us away was hurting him as much as it was hurting us,” Shaggy added. “And there’s something else you gotta consider here, too—how all six of us opened that gate on the mountain together.”

“There’s nothing surprising about that,” Daphne said. “Vincent’s been like family to us—that was enough for the gate to consider as ‘family ties.’”

“That’s just it!” Shaggy exclaimed. “It wouldn’t have worked if Mr. V hadn’t thought of us as family, too! If he wanted us out of it, we’d be back in the States right now with an amnesia spell to make us forget everything—we wouldn’t even be talking about it! He may not say it, but he really wants us to stick around.”

“…That’s true,” Daphne realized. “And he told us about what the witch hunters did to him—Mr. Voudini said that Vincent hadn’t even told _him_ about that.”

“Rhou see?” Scooby said.

“…Yeah, I do,” she said, managing a smile. “Thanks, Guys.”

“Anytime, Daphne,” Shaggy said, handing her the hot water bottle. “You’re sure you’ll mention your arm to Mr. V?”

“If he’s feeling better, yes,” she promised.

“Then I think Scoob and I will grab some more snacks and take them back to our rooms,” Shaggy said, grabbing the fruit bowl and the trail mix. Scooby grabbed some shortbread, and the three of them headed towards the turret, pausing as they saw that there was now a light coming from Vincent’s study as they headed back.

“…That’s odd; he wasn’t awake earlier,” Daphne said.

“Yeah, the light was off when we went down for our snacks,” Shaggy commented.

“Ruh-huh,” Scooby agreed.

The took a peek from the hallway, watching in surprise as Vincent, looking much better and no longer dizzy, was pulling books from his shelf, paging through them as though desperately looking for something.

“…Mr. Van Ghoul…?” Daphne asked.

He glanced at them in surprise.

“What are you three doing up?” he chided. “You’re supposed to be resting!”

“Rhou, too,” Scooby reminded him.

“As you can see, I have sufficiently regained enough of my mana to pursue some research endeavors,” Vincent replied, pulling yet another book off of the shelf. “What’s _your_ excuse?”

“Snack run,” Shaggy grinned, holding up the serving bowl. “Siracha trail mix?”

“No thanks, but you’re welcome to it,” Vincent returned. He tossed the book in his hands aside and pulled another one from the shelf.

“Well, um… you seem really busy, so I guess we’ll leave you alone,” Daphne began, but she found herself sheepishly at a loss for words after Shaggy and Scooby cleared their throats, staring pointedly at her right arm.

Vincent glanced back at them, taking note of this.

“What’s all this about?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s nothing, really,” Daphne insisted. “I think I sprained my arm during our struggle with the shadow witch. But I’m sure it’s nothing—”

“Let me see,” Vincent interrupted, tossing the current book aside, as well, extending a hand to them.

“Uh… I’m sure I’ll be alright by morning, but if there’s been no change, I’ll let you know… Hey!”

She yelped as Shaggy and Scooby practically nudged her into the study, and, with a sigh, she walked over to Vincent and pulled the right sleeve up of her robe.

“Zoinks! You call that a ‘little’ sprain!?” Shaggy exclaimed.

Scooby whimpered in sympathy as he looked at her swollen elbow.

“Probably a hairline fracture, though I’m certainly not an expert,” Vincent sighed. “Still, it’s nothing I can’t fix.”

“But your mana—” Daphne protested.

“I have more than enough mana for this,” Vincent assured her. “ _Esuna_.”

The swelling in her elbow shrank back down to normal size, and the pain vanished. Daphne let out a quiet sigh of relief before looking back at Vincent to thank him—only to be startled to see that he was frowning.

“You were going to let that go until morning?” he asked. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Daphne looked away for a moment.

“I… made a deal, back at the village,” she said. “I promised I wouldn’t ask you for anything ever again if you woke up.”

“…A most noble declaration, but _I_ don’t recall ever agreeing to it,” Vincent said, after a moment. His expression softened. “Daphne, please don’t blame yourself for any of this.”

“It’s… It’s _really_ hard not to!” she exclaimed, after a moment.

“Listen to me—all of you,” he added, glancing at Shaggy and Scooby, as well. “Everything that I did—every single decision that I made—was completely my choice. That goes for everything that we’ve been through so far—the Gorgons, the 13 Ghosts, everything. I had every chance to stay on the sidelines while you went after the Ghosts—I even tried that, at first, as you recall. And once Lady Pallas started giving me assignments, I even tried sending you home. Neither of those stuck, as you very well know.”

The three nodded.

“Nothing has changed with this,” Vincent continued. “I could use the Time Scepter now to rewind time, and the only thing I would try to change would be preventing the shadow witch from mesmerizing you, Daphne— _not_ because of what it led to, but because of the suffering you endured during it.” He glanced at Shaggy and Scooby now. “And all three of you—well, all five of you, really—need to know that there is nothing that I wouldn’t do to ensure your safety, and that, whatever it might be, would be _my_ choice. …And you have all proven that the sentiment is returned, and believe me, I am grateful for it, even if I _am_ vexed at you putting yourselves in danger. I can promise you that nothing, from my end, will ever change, as long as my humanity remains intact.”

“Well, we’re grateful, too…” Daphne began, but she trailed off as Vincent’s last sentence sunk in. “Wait, what?”

“Uh, Mr. V, what did you mean by that last one?” Shaggy asked.

“…You saw what became of that other warlock,” Vincent said, after a moment. “I knew him when he was human—now, he is completely unrecognizable as that gigantic beast. The shadow witch, as well, transformed into that giant spider. It’s something that I’ve seen and heard among powerful witches and warlocks—their power allows them to take on those monstrous forms and gain even _more_ power. And my power ranks as high as theirs—and greater.”

“Rhut, rhat doesn’t mean that rhou’re going to…” Scooby began, but he trailed off at the pained look on Vincent’s face.

“My own ancestor did the same thing,” he admitted. “And my power is said to surpass his. I’ve been searching through all of these books, trying to find out whether this is a voluntary transformation or not, but there is no clear answer. This same fate could be written in my blood, and I would have no way of knowing until it happens. It could be only a matter of time.”

“…No,” Daphne said. “No, I know it won’t happen.”

“We have no way of knowing for certain—”

“Yes, we do,” she returned. “You said it yourself—as long as your humanity remains intact. Well, you chose emeralds for your power stone—they stand for compassion, and that’s exactly how you treat us.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Shaggy agreed. “You’re a big old softy, like Flim-Flam said. What can be more human than that?”

“Or dog!” Scooby added, prompting the others to give him a bemused look. He shrugged, and continued. “Rhe’re here for rhou, Mr. Van Ghoul! Rhe know rhou could never be a monster!”

“They’re both right,” Daphne agreed. “That other warlock and the shadow witch only cared about power. And while I don’t know anything about your ancestor, I’m pretty sure he didn’t prioritize his family like you.” She managed a smile. “I’m still sorry that this happened—but I’m not sorry that we got through it while realizing where we all stand. And I know I speak for all of us when I say that we’ll most definitely stand by you.”

“And that there’ll be no transforming into a monster on our watch!” Shaggy added.

“Rheah!” Scooby barked.

They all proceeded to hug him again, prompting him to sigh in slight exasperation.

“You know, I’m _almost_ beginning to get used to this,” he said, eventually returning the group hug.

“Good,” the others chorused.

They stayed like that for a few minutes until Scrappy and Flim-Flam came by.

“Uh, hey…” Flim-Flam said. “We were going to grab a snack from the kitchen…”

“…But I smelled siracha and saw the light on in here,” Scrappy finished, his nose still twitching. “What’s going on?”

“Something that I think we all could use,” Daphne said, waving them over.

They didn’t understand exactly what was going on, on account of the others not wanting their youngest companions to be burdened with any worry. But they joined the group hug all the same.

And Vincent, still slightly exasperated—but still very grateful to all five of them—decided that there was truth to what they said after all. Why would he ever seek out power, or even anything else, when he had something far more valuable right now?

They were, as he’d called them, “his kids.” And they were, clearly, here to stay.

And that suited him just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s the end of this fic! Thanks to everyone who supported it! I promise that the next installment of my 13 Ghosts “Season 2” will be much more lighthearted and in the spirit of the original series. I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be starting it, as I want to tackle an original project in November for NaNoWriMo, but there’s every chance in the world I might start part 3 of my 13 Ghosts series at some point in November if inspiration is persistent (and, at the current rate, it definitely is).
> 
> Also, if anyone wants to know the full list of all of the Legend of Zelda references I managed to fit in to this fic, just ask.


End file.
